64
NOVEMBER 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
COURTESY DEF JAM RECORDS (BIG BOI)
YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVERMET BAMBOO,
son of rapper Antwan André Pa on
(
be er known as Big Boi, of Outkast fame), but the li le guy knows what you
want. The dashing 12-year-old, o en photographed in suits and shirts as stylish
as his dad’s, has a knack for picking crowd-pleasers. Some of the highest-charting
singles in Pa on’s career, in fact, were flagged by Bamboo and his siblings, 11-year-
old Cross and 17-year-old Jordan.
“
I’ve got my own private
American Idol
panel,” Pa on says. “When I’m taking
them to school in the morning, I play themmy new jams. When they get home
from school, they’re like, ‘Hey, Daddy, lemme hear that song again. Lemme hear
that song again. When you gonna put that song out?’”
When Bamboo heard tracks fromPa on’s new solo effort,
Vicious Lies and
Dangerous Rumors
,
his choice song was “Gossip,” a peppy club jam featuring South-
ern stalwarts UGK and relative rap
newcomer Big K.R.I.T. It was released
as the album’s first single in June.
People couldn’t stop talking about it.
Pa on believes that his kids’
uncanny ability to pick winners
stems from the fact that they mostly
skipped “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”
and went straight to the grownup
musical canon. “The beautiful thing,”
he says, “is that they grew up listen-
ing to everything I listened to, and
that’s everything from Kate Bush
to Bob Marley, to Guns N’ Roses,
to N.W.A., to A Tribe Called Quest,
Wilson Picke and Neil Young. Their
musical tastes are vast.”
Today, Pa on’s children are as
likely to be educating him as he is
them. His daughter Jordan, he says,
introduced him to such acts as The
Weeknd, Frank Ocean and A$AP
Rocky, the last of whom shares a
track on
Vicious Lies
. “
To have that
in-house A&R action is really dope,”
Pa on says.
nov. 13
MOVIES
The Man With the Iron Fists
,
giving Russell Crowe an excuse to shout “Hi-YA!”
//
Steven Spielberg’s
Lincoln
,
featuring Daniel Day-Lewis looking more Lincoln-y than Lincoln
BOOKS
The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine Al Dente)
,
in which
Kirstie Alley reviews her life through the prism of L. Ron Hubbard and others
//
Both Flesh and Not: Essays
,
a collection
of work by the late David Foster Wallace
MUSIC
Girl on Fire
,
Alicia Keys’ sizzling fifth studio album
EXHIBITS
“
Charlie
Brown and the Great Exhibit”—in which the holiday season goes Peanuts—at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry
Boi Talk
A fewof the dapper rapper’s
thoughts on …
Music festivals:
“
It’s
almost like you’re in
summer camp. To be
around all those people
and be able to share
music—you get nothing
but creativity out of that.”
Over-recording:
“
If you record
enough songs, you end up with an album
full of singles. It’s a good way of doing it.
It’s always been like that, even when we
were working on Outkast albums.”
Artistic integrity:
“
The label understands
the music now and the vision I have, after
seeing me rock crowds and what I’m doing
online. My artistic integrity is definitely
intact, and that’s what it’s all about.”
His grandma:
“
She was real hip, you know?
My grandma was the biggest gangster
I ever knew, and she raised me. I’m just
carrying on the legacy.”
A
L
S
O
O
U
T
T
H
I
S
M
O
N
T
H
The Kids
Are All Right
Outkast funkmaster
Big Boi’s hitmaking
secrets are small and
live in his house
FAMILY GUY
Big Boi
has always had a knack
for producing hits—
turns out he had help
culture
||
THEMONTHAHEAD
