Outkast Album.....Not Yet!

by Jason Lipshutz, N.Y.

Billboard.com - Fellow citizens of Stankonia: we've got some sad news for you. In a new interview, Andre 3000, one half of the game-changing Atlanta hip-hop duo OutKast, says that there is no new music from him and Big Boi in the works.

"There's been a lot of talk on the Internet about an OutKast album and I have to say that as of now, there are no plans for another OutKast album," the rapper tells GQ. The duo's last proper album was 2006's "Idlewild," and while Big Boi released a solo album, "Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty," in 2010, Andre 3000 has spent the downtime lending guest verses to artists like Ke$ha, Drake and B.o.B.

"There's a lot of music on the horizon," the rapper continues. "I've been living off the excitement of new artists. I've been privileged to have these new artists kind of reach out and grab back and say, 'Hey, Andre, we want you on this song.' So I've been taking those calls and for the last two years, I've been doing collaborations. So these new artists have kind of been keeping me alive. I've just really been feeding off of that and this year I think I'm planning to do a solo project. I don't know when it will come out, but hopefully it'll come out this year. As far as OutKast, I really don't know if or when that will happen."

Andre 3000's only solo offering is his half of OutKast's "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," in which he presented a kaleidoscopic hodgepodge of pop, R&B and electronica (and scored a No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 with "Hey Ya!"). When asked about his in-the-works solo debut, the rapper said, "The only thing I can really say is I'm going to get back to having fun because that's what it was all about when I started this in high school-with OutKast-those were like high school dreams. I'm 36 now, so I have grown-man dreams. This album will just be me being myself as normal."

Back in 2009, Big Boi told Billboard that he and Andre planned to release their first solo albums, and then get back to work as the Mighty O. Last September, OutKast was one of a handful of artists to move to Epic Records following the restructuring of Sony Music.