Ah-hah, hush that fuss, Pop Screen is back with Graham and Dreaming Machine‘s Joe to take a look at OutKast’s 2006 movie vehicle Idlewild. It’s not uncommon for rappers to make their big-screen debuts by playing gangsters, but as ever Andre 3000 and Big Boi found their own unique way of doing things, by setting it all in an anachronistically-scored Black bohemia in the 1930s. It’s a gangster movie, it’s a backstage musical, it’s a Prohibition drama, it’s a hip-hop film… it’s so many things, in fact, that the audience were confused and stayed at home.
While not perfect, it deserved a better fate. Join Graham and Joe as they discuss the film’s dynamite cast, its odd but intriguing parent album – which is, as of 2022, the last OutKast record – and the shadow that one immortal Key and Peele sketch has cast over OutKast discourse. We also consider how the band’s legacy only appears to have grown since their split, and reference that weird news story from a few years back about someone spotting Andre Benjamin just wandering around an airport playing jazz flute. That was a good one.
If you’d like to help us keep crocodiles on our feet and fox-fur on our back, you can donate to our Patreon, where Rob is busy starting up his regular feature spotlighting great Asian films that lack a distributor in the UK. There’s also a bonus episode of this show out on Friday 9th September, where Graham and Mark Harrison review – get this! – every James Bond theme. Ever. And then some. For more updates, check out our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
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Episode 77: OutKast in Idlewild
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