So you are officially signed to Def Jam Records now? The last time this news leaked out, you came back and refuted it.
I’m signed to Def Jam as of a week ago. Jive let me go. I asked to be released due to creative differences. I’m back with the man [Antonio “L.A.” Reid] who understands my music and the creative process. Much respect to Barry Weiss at Jive though. Much thanks to him for respecting my craft and letting me do what I gotta do.

Did you ever imagine yourself being signed to Def Jam?
I always loved Def Jam since Krush Groove, but I never imagined being over there. But I don’t care where I’m at, as long as the team has the marketing and promotion to get it where it needs to be. That’s all that matters.

You said the final straw was when Jive asked you to record your own version of Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop.” Why would they think that would be a good idea?
They don’t know us like that. Up until Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Outkast was not a radio-driven group. We are Soul Funk crusaders. The type of music we make, we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye with the label on it. For a man to tell me to go make my own version of “Lollipop?” That doesn’t even sound right. That’s what the president of Jive told me. When he told me that, that’s when I had to start putting my own songs out. I was leaking songs just trying to figure out how to make the right moves. I want to put this album out under the right circumstances. Things weren’t jelling over there.

Did you take a suggestion like that as disrespectful?
At first, you take it as disrespect, but then you realize that they just don’t know any better. They’re just trying to work the radio. It’s not about integrity with music anymore. We make music. We’re not just making songs for your phone to ring to, were making music for you to live by. [Jive] didn’t get that. They didn’t get that memo.

There was a time that whenever an Outkast song left the studio, whether by design or by mistake, radio was all over it almost instantly. Why aren’t we hearing any of the joints you leaked on the air?
It’s programming. The people are not picking the music, it’s the suits now picking the music for the people to listen to. There’s not a lot of respect for it. It’s all about the dollar, so they want what sells the fastest. With music being such a fast burn nowadays, there’s a new song today and a new song tomorrow and another one on Wednesday. My thing is, my focus is to make timeless classics and not conform into what’s going on now. Ice Cube said it best: “Don’t follow trends, set them.” Don’t let them dictate to you. I’ve been doing that, and it’s working.

With all the success he’s achieved, you’d think Big Boi would be the last person to have any record label drama. He’s proven that he can make great music and sell a couple records. No Outkast album has gone less than platinum. When you combine all of their albums totals, it reaches 25 million. That’s more than Luther Vandross, Sade, Earth, Wind and Fire, Green Day and Nirvana, to name a few. They are the only rap group to win six Grammys. Aside from Run-DMC, they are widely considered the greatest rap group of all time.

So it goes without saying that whatever Big Boi has been doing for the past 17 years must be working. Unfortunately, the industry doesn’t work the same way. The consensus right now is that “music sucks” and if you’re not on the radio or 106th & Park, you’re not going to do well. Anybody that really still listens to rap music will tell you that there’s actually quite a bit of great music out there, it’s just not being broadcast. But the reality is that yes, for an artist of Big Boi’s stature, radio and TV has to be an option that is exploited. Big knows this and has made the best adjustments he can without “selling out” in the process.