Happy 15th Anniversary to Big Boi’s debut solo album Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, originally released July 5, 2010.
Mere days before I wrote this, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced that it was inducting OutKast into its ranks. It’s a worthy inclusion, as the venerable group made up of André “3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton were trailblazing pioneers who recorded and released some of the best music ever released.
As a group, OutKast’s four-album run from 1994 to 2000 is still legendary. Their double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003) won the GRAMMY Award for Album of the Year and was packed with exceptional, groundbreaking material. Even their final album, the soundtrack to the mostly forgotten film Idlewild (2006), is an underappreciated project, featuring some excellent material.
After Idlewild, the members of OutKast went their separate ways in terms of their recording careers. André 3000 had always been the flashier of the pair and marked as the most likely to become a superstar. André has always been an iconoclast, and occasionally has bristled at the idea that his musical legacy would be defined as being one half of OutKast.
That being said, despite the success and acclaim of The Love Below, André’s solo career hasn’t really taken off in the nearly two decades since OutKast disbanded. He’s dropped many memorable guest verses but has yet to release an album featuring his vocals, rapping or otherwise. Rather, during his post OutKast-career, he has shown more interest in being an actor and instrumentalist. In terms of music, these days he mostly sticks to playing the electric recorder (or flute, when I’m not being obnoxious) or noodling around on the piano. He has frequently commented that rapping really isn’t in him at this point in his life.
Meanwhile, in the nearly 20 years since going his own way, Big Boi seems much more accepting of his musical direction. Even though he’s become a well-known dog breeder and dabbled in acting, he’s continued on the path that he began as a member of OutKast. Besides creating his own Purple Ribbon imprint, he’s released multiple solo rap projects.
The first of which, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, was released 15 years ago. It’s an excellent album, one that showed Big Boi’s continued growth. The long player simultaneously sounds retro and modern, establishing that Big Boi honors and respects his past accomplishments, while demonstrating his willingness to continue to blaze new trails.
Sir Lucious Left Foot was notorious for the numerous delays for its release. Many of the issues seemed to stem from the BMG and Sony merger during the mid-‘00s. This realignment of numerous major record labels wreaked havoc for many rappers and groups, as the artists on LaFace/Arista Records were folded into the Jive label. And many at Jive didn’t seem to be that enthusiastic about the release of a Big Boi solo album, preferring another OutKast project instead.
Listen to the Album:
Hence, an album that Big Boi started to record in 2007 wasn’t released until 2010. And on a different label, as Big Boi eventually left Jive for Def Jam, then run by long-time supporter LA Reid. The process to get Sir Lucious Left Foot onto the shelves was long and arduous. It’s one that has been documented at length in other places, so I won’t rehash matters here. But out of a mess of inter-label wrangling and delays, a really good album eventually emerged. Sir Lucious Left Foot was one of the better albums of 2010, reinforcing that Big Boi had the skills and charisma to build his own successful solo career.
During this three-year recording period, numerous songs for the project were released. Some appeared on the final version of the album. Some like, “Royal Flush,” which featured guest verses from Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon and André 3000, did not. The major sticking point being that André 3000 (and OutKast as whole) were still signed to Jive/Arista/Sony, and thus the label balked at André delivering lyrics on a Big Boi solo project.
Hence, the eventual GRAMMY-nominated “Royal Flush,” as well as “Lookin 4 Ya” (featuring André and Sleepy Brown), were excised from Sir Lucious Left Foot. Big Boi has said that the only thing he would have changed about the final version of the album is the inclusion of both songs. But while both of the recordings are great, and would have fit into the album’s flow, Sir Lucious Left Foot is excellent in its commercially released form.
Big Boi opens Sir Lucious Left Foot with “Daddy Fat Sax,” where he makes clear that he’s not here to fuck around. He talks his shit, while asserting that his decorated history has given him a sense of purpose as an artist. He asserts his higher purpose in this game with lines like “I got bigger fish to fry, n****s wish I would retire / ’Cause of the pressure I apply every time I bust a rhyme” and “I'm on another planet, my n***a, and you just fly.”
“Turns Me On” functions as a slightly edgier version of “The Way You Move” and features the vocal talents of Sleepy Brown and Joi. It’s the first of four songs (five, if you count the bonus tracks) produced by Organized Noize. For all their grousing in The Art of Organized Noize documentary (2016) about not being included on Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, the production team worked extensively with both OutKast and Big Boi in the years that followed. Here the group lays down some solid funk, along with some nimble work on the keys, as Big Boi describes the object of his affection.
Sir Lucious Left Foot doesn’t really kick into high gear until “Shutterbugg,” the Scott Storch-produced first official single. The track mixes sampled material with live instrumentation, sounding both futuristic and retro, layering chirping and fluttering keyboards over warped vocal sample. Big Boi starts the track off with an opening line in keeping with this theme, proclaiming, “I keep it playa while some choose to play it safe.”
The album continues through interesting musical territory with “Tangerine,” a psychedelic strip club anthem. Featuring appearances from T.I. and Goodie Mob’s Khujo (who performs the hook), it features some of the album’s best production, as Big Boi puts together fuzzy electric guitars with thumping percussion. “Shine Blockas,” featuring Gucci Mane, sounds like a mid-1990s throwback, with the pair flossing as they rap to a refreaked sample of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “I Miss You.”
André 3000 makes a sole appearance on Sir Lucious Left Foot as a producer, working behind the boards on “You Ain’t No DJ.” With its electro clatter, it also finds common ground in the sounds of the 1980s and the 2010s. The song is mostly an exhibition in more lyrical braggadocio, as Big Boi boasts, “Let's be clear, I'm a leader, not your peer / Valedictorian of this rap shit every year.” It also features a guest verse from Yelawolf, back during that brief period where he was a thing. Though I’m not much of a fan of him as a rapper, his verse is decent enough.
Watch the Official Videos:
Big Boi kicks some lyrical shit on the soaring “General Patton,” holding court as the Southern Rap elder statesman, berating wack rappers and various other phonies for impeding hip-hop music’s progress. The track is unlike anything else on Sir Lucious Left Foot, as Big Boi delivers his raps aggressively to a sample from the opera Aida. He commands attention as raps, “B.B. will plant you n****s like seeds, or fertilizer for the trees.”
Big Boi works well with a number of skilled vocalists on Sir Lucious Left Foot. He teams with Jamie Foxx on “Hustle Blood” to create a slow-rolling rock-tinged funk. The pair each explain how their family upbringing has shaped their interactions with the object of their romantic interests.
“Be Still” extensively features the vocal talents of Janelle Monáe, who was solidifying herself as a rising star at the time of the album’s release. Monáe had a lengthy history working with Big Boi prior to Sir Lucious Left Foot. She had appeared on two tracks on the Purple Ribbon All-Stars’ “Big Boi Presents... Got Purp? Vol. II compilation (2005) and Big Boi was one of the executive producers for her Metropolis, Suite I Of IV: The Chase EP (2007). Furthermore, Big Boi contributed a guest verse to her own breakout hit “Tightrope,” released less than two months before to support her debut full-length album The ArchAndroid (2010).
Monáe essentially takes the lead on “Be Still,” crooning beautifully to a Royal Flush produced synth-heavy track. I suspect it may have had an original life as an ArchAndroid outtake. Regardless, Big Boi drops a solid opening verse admonishing a woman for playing hard to get.
“For Yo Sorrows” serves as Big Boi’s most definitive “guess who’s back?” statement, which makes it a little weird that it appears on the album’s back half. It’s still one of the project’s best songs, with Big Boi honoring his influences by hooking up appearances from Too $hort and O.G. funkateer George Clinton. On production, Organized Noize and Big Boi hook up a track that leans into 1980 funk and electro, while incorporating some EDM and Southern crunk influences.
Big Boi delves further into the nouveau funk feel with “The Train, Pt. 2.” The Organized Noize-produced track is a sequel to one of the more underappreciated songs on the Idlewild soundtrack (2006), where Big Boi reflected on his history as an emcee, seemingly preparing himself for his solo career. The sequel finds Big Boi continuing to build on his strong foundation while traversing the challenges presented by a shifting landscape for artists. He chastises those who continue to rhyme without substance, invoking the name and ideas of KRS-One as he raps, “See the enemy is winning, ’cause your punk ass be afraid / But I spray what's on my mind to educate and entertain.”
I’m not going to pretend that over the last 15 years Big Boi has put together a solo career that guarantees him induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on his own. But Sir Lucious Left Foot certainly verified that he had a lot of tread on his tire after leaving OutKast and represents a project that moved his career forward without shying away from his past. Big Boi showed he was comfortable with who he was, and more than able to create something new and fresh.
Listen: