Big Boi’s favourite album of all time: “He’s the king”
He may be one of the famed rappers of hip-hop’s golden generation, but Big Boi has a wide range of favourite music across all genres, including albums from Funkadelic, Slick Rick, Tom Petty, The Isley Brothers and Mobb Deep. However, there’s one LP that stands above the rest.
Speaking to Complex, the Atlanta rapper revealed that Michael Jackson’s classic 1982 album Thriller is his favourite of all time, calling him the “king” and one of a kind. “Exactly. Nine songs on there,” he began. “And actually, the nickname for Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors was The N*gga Thriller. Like, another dimension of Michael Jackson Thriller. I was gonna give them nine songs, but I knew they would’ve been so thirsty.
“But, every song has to be power music. And for my album, I wanted it to be the same thing, where every song hits you in a different way. That’s like the greatest album of all time to me. He’s the king, and there ain’t gonna be another one. That be it, yo. Ain’t no ‘the next Michael Jackson.’ Just like there ain’t no ‘next Outkast.’ Ain’t no ‘next Beatles.’ There ain’t no next.”
Thriller is the best-selling album of all time, having spent a record 37 weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 chart from February 1983 until April 1984. The album is home to hit singles such as ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Beat It’, ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, ‘Human Nature’, ‘P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)’, ‘This Girl Is Mine’ and of course, the title track, ‘Thriller’.
While MJ holds his favourite album, the Outkast member doesn’t consider him as one of his two favourite artists. [Bob Marley and Kate Bush] are my favourite artists of all time,” Big Boi revealed. Touching on Bush’s 1982 album The Dreaming, he said, “The quality of the production was incredible. And one of the things I loved most about her when I first got introduced to her music [by my uncle] was the stories she would tell in her music.”
He added, “And it wasn’t like right in your face. You would kind of have to decipher what she was saying. There was a long gap between the time she released the album before this one and when this one came out, and it just had some jams on it. It was like real vibey.”
Big Boi has also called Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1995 album Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On one of his favourites, seeing similarities between him and the Jamaican legend. “It’s the social commentary in the music,” he said. “Bob stood for something. He stood for people. And he was definitely against injustice. And I’m the same way … Bob is definitely for the people, and I’m for the people.
“I feel like I definitely have a voice, and I want to touch people across the world, and teach and enlighten people on what’s going on. And encourage people to think for themselves. I love independent thinkers. And that’s what Bob Marley is to me.”
Big Boi operated as a true free thinker when he was churning out albums with OutKast and beyond. It ios this uniqueness that he takes into all his work and was clearly influenced by.