‘Wild’ Things

“This is probably the first musical that didn’t have the music done before it was shot,” OutKast’s Andre Benjamin says of the group’s film “Idlewild,” the soundtrack for which arrives this week via LaFace/Zomba. “That has been the biggest lesson I’ve learned in this whole thing. Next time, we’ll do the music first.”

The set features guest appearances from Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Sleepy Brown and Macy Gray, among others. The first single is “Mighty O,” which was produced by Organized Noize and features Andre 3000 and Big Boi (real name: Antwan Patton) on the same track for the first time since 2000. The latter takes top billing on second single “Morris Brown” featuring Scar and Sleepy Brown.

In “Idlewild,” Andre plays Percival, a club piano player, while Big Boi plays the club’s lead performer and manager, Rooster. The film is set in the 1930s. During the film’s production, the duo would hit the studio after a day of filming to write music for a scene. Then, of course, they would change their minds and rewrite it. The bulk of the writing happened after the film wrapped, when they could just be OutKast, instead of Patton and Benjamin, the actors.

“We went into the studio and did what we normally do,” Patton says. “But we kept in mind that it was a 1930s movie. We tried to keep ourselves hip and fresh, but at the same time keep that 1930s frame musically, so it all fit together.”

Even though they may go in different directions musically, Patton and Benjamin, who attended the same high school in Atlanta, are friends til death do them part. “I know I’m going to know this man until I’m pretty much out of here. I know his kids, he knows my kids,” Benjamin says. “We all hang out together. We’re talking about Antwon and Andre. That is something that was born, not out of music, but from hanging out in high school. We weren’t two guys that a record company put together.”

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