Outkast casts wide net with album, movie

[KiwiCoromandel]

OutKast duo Antwan Patton and Andre Benjamin are sitting in a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills picking at pancakes. They need to figure out the track listing for their upcoming soundtrack album, the companion to the film Idlewild, in which they co-star.

Zomba Label Group president/CEO Barry Weiss, pen in hand, writes out different scenarios. Patton keeps picking at his breakfast. Weiss leans back on the couch and says with a laugh, "We need to figure this out! We need this album to be done!" Patton and Benjamin smile. "We know," Patton says. "We're getting there."

Patton, aka "Big Boi," and Benjamin, aka "Andre 3000", are perfectionists as much as they are innovators. Idlewild would have been released to cinemas last year – if the music had been done.

Now, after numerous postponements, OutKast is ready – sort of. They still keep going back in the studio to "tweak" some tracks. But come hell or high water, the LaFace/Zomba album will be released August 22, with the film hitting cinemas three days later.

"This is probably the first musical that didn't have the music done before it was shot," Benjamin says. "That has been the biggest lesson I've learnt in this whole thing. Next time, we'll do the music first."

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