December 14, 2006

Big Boi Plays Games, Golf; Andre 3000 Re-Enacts Seattle Battle

By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Dave Basner (MTV.com)

NEW YORK - Big Boi is beating T.I. into oblivion. If their respective characters Marcus and Rashad had fought this much in the movie "ATL," the film would have been a straight-up action vehicle, not a coming-of-age drama.

As the fighting continues, Daddy Fat Sacks makes the King of the South look like a mere pauper: Tip is getting thrown up against a huge, all-black SUV that subsequently bursts into flames, after which Big Boi slams T.I. onto the hard concrete, worse than Sally gets it from her mother in Slick Rick's "La-Di Da-Di." It's painful to watch.

Welcome to the world of "Def Jam: Icon," a new video game due early next year that Big Boi previewed Tuesday. EBoth rappers play themselves in the game, the third volume in Electronic Arts' wrestling series tied to Def Jam Interactive, a subsidiary of Def Jam Enterprises.

"I'm just getting the hang of it," said Big, Xbox 360 controller in hand. (T.I. wasn't around to try out the game.) "Not having a gun or weapon or something, the environment acts as your weapon. It depends on how good you know the music as to when something is gonna blow up and explode and knock somebody out. I can't wait to play the story mode, where you get to build a label and sign artists."

Big hasn't gotten too deep into this game yet, but he's a self-proclaimed champ in EA's "Madden" football series. (Contrary to what fans might assume, he actually plays as the New England Patriots, not his hometown Atlanta Falcons.) Plus his kids love video games, so it wasn't hard for him to get down with EA again for the new Def Jam game.

"They scanned me," Big Boi explained of his process working with the designers, who tried to make his character as life-like as possible. "It was like an X-ray. ... A couple of weeks later, I did the voiceovers. It was a whole script. It was fun."

Big says he doesn't get a chance to play video games as much as he would like because he's been working so much. Besides a new Outkast project, there's a yet-untitled solo album in the works, and he recently wrapped another movie too.

"I just got finished shooting a comedy called Who's Your Caddy? " he said. Big described it as loosely based on the classic film Caddyshack.

"I play the lead role in the movie," he said, "this guy called C-Note. He tries to get a membership to this golf country club. So I buy the most expensive house on the country club and the 17th hole just happens to be on my property, so they gotta let me in. ... I play opposite the dude Jeffery Jones from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Tamala Jones, Andy Milonakis, Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air [James Avery], Bruce Bruce. Sh-- is hilarious."

The ATLien said he had never been on the green before the film and got the chance to get his stroke down.

"It was my first time out there actually playing golf," Big smiled. "They had us playing golf and polo, riding helicopters. I was really throwing my shoulder out trying to slap that thing out over the goddamn fence."

Obviously Big Boi's goal is to knock his next solo LP out of the park as well. He's been working with Outkast partner Andre 3000, Organized Noize, Danger Mouse and a slew of young producers he has under his wing.

"I got 40-something songs done for the solo joint," he said. "I'm trying to narrow them down. It's going to be vicious though."

In the interim, between working on their solo albums as well as the group effort, both Outkast members are appearing here and there on various other records. The duo crop up on the remix to DJ Unk's "Walk It Out," while Dre also surfaces on the remixes to Murder Inc. artist Lloyd's "You" (Nas also has a cameo on the track) and Rich Boy's "Throw Some D's" (which also features Jim Jones and the Game). Big, in the meantime, appears without Dre on Fantasia's "Hood Boy," the lead single from her self-titled album.

"It was good," Big boasted of working with the "Idol" winner. "When they first sent the record, it was old-school Motown -- how she was blowing, she got that raw throat. She was like, 'Put something on it.' I was like, 'All right.' We went in the studio. It was dope. The song is jammin'.

"It's not a lot of female artists out here that can blow," he continued, speaking of her strong vocal delivery. "She can down-home-church blow, like she's at a Baptist church on Sunday. People respect her throat!"

Meanwhile, Dre is pushing his new film Charlotte's Web (out Friday) and cartoon Class of 3000.

"The kids are loving [Charlotte's Web]," he recently said in New York. "They'll tell you their favorite characters. I'm happy people are getting it. We spent three years doing it and I'm happy it's finally out."

Dre says sometime in 2007 he'll finally get his clothing line out. He's got more in the works too: Dre couldn't hang in NYC too long because he was off to Seattle to shoot his next movie, The Battle in Seattle, with Woody Harrelson and Charlize Theron. The film centers around unrest at a World Trade Organization meeting.

"There was a protest in 1999 with the WTO," he said. "I'm playing this character named Jingle. Michelle Rodriguez is a protester. It's fun. I learned a lot because I didn't know nothing about the WTO, believe it or not. I'm getting schooled."