Big Boi: much less than a glass half full

It's been a long time since Outkast took the hip-hop and pop worlds by storm with the double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The Atlanta duo was able to do something that few artists ever accomplish: They recorded a serious album that was wildly inventive, pushed the boundaries of the form in which they worked and did so in a way that was wildly popular. "Hey Ya!" and "The Way You Move" were mega hits. "Hey Ya!" might have been one of the greatest so-called crossover singles of the last decade (perhaps second only to Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"). 

Maybe 2003 doesn't seem that long ago, but popular music can experience what seems like generational turnover every six to 12 months. And despite the impermanence of the contemporary pop/hip hop record, the legacy of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below feels as enduring as any of other record of the time. It is in that album's long shadow that Big Boi, the "grounded" half of Outkast, released his solo album Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty a few weeks ago to nearly universal acclaim.

I got a copy of the new album and started listening... I was underwhelmed. I listened again and again. I must be out of touch, I thought. Everyone loves this record. A reasonable person would probably accept that he was (again) hopelessly out-of-touch. But I think that's not true. I think our expectations for hip hop records have sunk so low that we're ready to coronate nearly any record that is not completely devoid of artistry. It doesn't take much these days to earn B+.

First, the pros. Big Boi is a great rapper, for what that's worth. He's fast, clever and funny. He can rhyme with amazing, perhaps peerless, velocity. Also, if you're looking for something to dance to, or to give your car stereo a good workout, this is your record. For what it is, this album works. 

Now the stuff I can't get over:

The sound of this record is entirely predictable. It sounds no different than any number of so-called crunk records that have been churning out of southern rap acts for the last 10 years. Big Boi's first single here, "Shutterbugg" sounds very much like it could have been recorded in the late '90s. From track to track, Big Boi's musical backdrop underwhelms. It's all drum-machine beats and Casio keys with the standard repetitive sing-along choruses. There are occasional touches of the weird, like "General Patton's" opera sample, for example. "Tangerine" gets interesting with some cool guitar work and a mean beat, but the progress gets derailed by the next problem I have with this record.

By the time "Tangerine" rolled around, I lost count of the crass blow job references, frat-boy allusions (including the track's opening description of the "David Blaine." You'll have to listen for yourself for the description) and rote street cred cliches. I don't object to all the sexual bluster and crass innuendo on priggish grounds. Some of the stuff is truly funny. But I really expected something smarter and more creative from Big Boi. Again, this record doesn't contain a shred of thematic variation from a generation of main stream rap before it. It's greatest accomplishment just might be the album's George Clinton-esque title. How many more Cadilac and DJ choruses should we be expected to take?

To me, the success of rap -- unlike rock -- depends very much on lyrical content. Particularly if you're going the Big Boi route here: a wholly conventional, pop/hip hop record. Lyrically, Big Boi may dazzle with speed and rhyme, but if there were any interesting ideas here -- anything remotely worth slowing down to think about -- I missed them completely. Lyrically, Sir Lucious Left Foot strikes me as remarkably lazy. It doesn't stack up to records by his peers, from The Roots' vital new How I Got Over to the truly ambitious Archandroid by Janelle Monae.

And worse for Big Boi, it doesn't stack up to his own work. It's not in the same league as a good portion of Speakerboxx and certainly not the brilliant Stankonia, which solidified Outkast's rep as the top rap outfit of its generation. Nothing here approaches "Ms. Jackson," the brilliant song-as-apology and self examination about Andre 3000's failed relationship with Erykaha Badu. The glass here is half empty.

I'm left with only one conclusion... Big Boi is just not interesting without his counterpart, Andre 3000. Like McCartney without Lennon, Big Boi has talent but no art. He is a master of the pop form but he's ultimatley too conservative for his own good. He's not able to break out from any number of hip hop cliches and produce a record that is truly exciting. Of course, many rap acts wish they were half as interesting as Outkast, and on that count, Big Boi is fine. He's definitely at the top of the rap game. But without Andre as a foil, Big Boi solo is to Outkast what Wings was to the Beatles. Watered down and disposable.

Big Boi might have made a nice album. But on the crucial question: Does Sir Lucious Left Foot live up to the legacy of Outkast? The answer is a resounding, crunk-cliched no way.