EXCLUSIVE: Goodie Mob Explains Lining Up André 3000 And Big Boi For New Album "Survival Kit"

When André 3000 said “the south got something to say” at the 1995 Source Awards, that statement became a precursor to the dominant reign southern Hip Hop would have over the culture for decades. André and his OutKast partner Big Boi went on to secure multiple #1 singles, a Diamond-certified album, and a Grammy win for Album of the Year.

3 Stacks very rarely steps back into the music lane these days as he continues to pursue an acting career in television and film productions such as Jimi: All Is by My Side, American Crime, and Dispatches from Elsewhere. However, he did turn up on his Dungeon Family brethren’s latest project.

Seven years after the release of Age Against the Machine, Goodie Mob reunited for Survival Kit. The 16-track effort includes a guest appearance by André 3000 on a song titled “No Cigar.” Big Boi also showed up on “Prey 4 Da Sheep.” Plus, Public Enemy’s Chuck D is featured on the opening track.

“Before the pandemic started, we just come off a Dungeon Family tour. So all of us had just come off tour. Big Boi, Organized Noize, Goodie Mob, we had just traveled the world,” Big Gipp explained to AllHipHop.com during a sit down with The Goodie Mob. “So we were getting ready to go into the Goodie Mob leg of the tour, and that’s when the pandemic hit. All of us are still around each other at Stankonia. So when we started putting tracks to the side to say, ‘What should we invite the family on?’ Big Boi instantly picked, ‘Pray 4 Da Sheep.’ And he worked on his record for at least a week or two. He took that record and went to his hole.”

“We hit Dré [André 3000] with about three or four records. And then he picked his record. We all woke up in the morning and he had his verse, so that’s when we knew we finally put the special sauce bed together,” Big Gipp revealed.

OutKast has not put out an official studio album since 2006’s Idlewild. Over the last five years, André 3000 has popped his head out on cuts by Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Solange, A Tribe Called Quest, Anderson .Paak, and others. Big Boi’s catalog consists of the solo projects Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, and Boomiverse.