The boys are back in town

Andre 3000, left, is a vegan non-drinker, while Big Boi likes large bling, cigars and pitbulls.

It's late on a steamy Atlanta, Georgia, night and the two members of Outkast, Andre "Andre 3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, are holding court poolside at the Hyatt Hotel.

The Grammy award-winning and multi-platinum selling duo who both hail from Georgia are one of the most innovative and popular hip-hop acts in the world - especially following the enormous success of their last album Speakerboxx/The Love Below.

This time the duo are trying to set a whole new style with the release of their album Idlewild, which will serve as a soundtrack to their upcoming film of the same name. The film is set in a mythical Georgia town, Idlewild, in the 1930s.

In the film the two play life-long friends. Benjamin plays the son of a mortician who moonlights as a piano player in a speakeasy, while Big Boi plays the club's showy lead performer and manager.

Idlewild has had more than a year of release-date push-backs and cost overruns, but Benjamin won't talk about the reason for the delay.

"Marketing-wise they wanted to release the album and the movie at the same time and the album wasn't ready," he says matter-of-factly.

The soundtrack will be the band's first new music in three years and Benjamin says it involved many restraints, especially for a film set in the 1930s.

"It's an Outkast album but it's also a soundtrack. Some tracks were done before the movie and some while we were shooting," he says. "We had to make sure it was an Outkast album and we didn't want to disappoint our fans but we had to keep in mind that it was set in the 1930s ... It definitely gives you boundaries and a framework but it's a healthy challenge."

While the album references 30s jazz and blues, Benjamin said they still had to make it sound contemporary.

"It can't be this retro thing. It still has to be done in an Outkast fashion. It would be dishonest to us and our fans if we did this whole 1930s album. We're not from that era and I'm not even a big fan from that era, but I can appreciate some of it. When I went into this album it's not like I'm listening to Cab Calloway songs and thinking, 'How can I re-do this?' cause that would have been corny," he says.

After the milestone of Speakerboxx/The Love Below which won three Grammys and spurned hits Hey Ya, The Way You Move and Roses, Benjamin agrees the rise to A-league stardom took them unawares. "That was so out of the blue for us. I still think I will be trying to figure that out 10 years from now. There is always more pressure to do something people accept is good, but all we can do is do the best we can do. I think the best thing we could do was not just release another Outkast album, but with a movie, it makes the stakes a lot higher," he says.

Pushing the idea of two rappers with mixed acting experience to do a film set in a 30s speakeasy was a tough sell - most studios thought the two would be best suited in an urban cop buddy flick. It was envisioned as a straight-to-cable release with a modest US$1.5 million ($2.35 million) budget. But Universal acquired the rights after viewing early footage last year. Some name actors including Terence Howard and Ving Rhames joined the cast as well as soul stars Patti Labelle and Macy Gray. Add dancers and choreographers and the budget ballooned to US$27 million. "It's much easier to throw your money at that kind of film than a period movie starring two people who are new to acting. It was an uphill battle to get this film made," says Benjamin.

At least he has some acting experience with roles in Be Cool and Four Brothers. But he says he still feels he has a long way to go to be considered for his acting. "You have to get away from your musical persona. You spend years building up one character and then you have to let it all go to play in a movie. You can't just maybe play a character; you have to really do it," he says.

A film where the two lead characters are friends but rarely come together seems like a mirror to the hip-hop duo who act as two solo projects under the banner of one. Benjamin agrees their on screen relationship shares some similarities to real life.

"Not that we grew up as childhood friends but we did meet in the 10th grade and we always had a common bond which was music. It's like this in the movie. We have different lives and different aspirations. He has his own life and I have my own life and in the movie we have our separate lives but they intertwine and we have a bond - that's how it is in real life. We always come together in some kind of way."

But despite their differences - Big Boi's preference is for large bling, cigars and pitbulls and Benjamin is a vegan, non-drinker - it is obvious their friendship keeps their tenuous bond going.

"Physically it's changed a lot," agrees Benjamin. "We started off as two guys in high school doing everything together, having the same type of job at the same time, or going out with the same girls who were friends; the kind of thing you do in high school. But the older you get, you grow apart when you start your own families and you are not physically in the same place any more, so physically it has changed but that lifeline, that bond that we've always had, stays the same."

Musically they separated around the time of 2000's Stankonia.

"I guess we've always had our own thing, but we would be in the studio together while we were doing our own thing, but that stopped around Stankonia," says Benjamin. "And I think that came from a confidence thing. When I started I was doing melodic things and my confidence wasn't really there, and if you want to sing a passionate love song, that's hard. So that started the whole thing of being in the studio by myself. For me it's like singing in the shower. You sing your best when you are alone."

Idlewild the album musically reunites the pair - its first single Mighty O has the duo rhyming together for the first time in six years.

"I think the last song we did rappin' was Miss Jackson," says Big Boi who momentarily joins the conversation before dropping off into a dozed stupor once again. The chorus is simply "the Mighty O" but it's sung like the chorus from Cab Calloway's 1931 classic, Minnie the Moocher.

Says Benjamin: "We started with a beat. And I was thinking the beat was good; it was jamming but how do we make it work for the movie? So I started thinking of the whole Cab Calloway thing, so we changed it to make sense for us, so we said Mighty Mighty O."

The likelihood of ever seeing Outkast perform live is remote. Benjamin is not interested. "I like touring but right now I'm at a point I want to do something else."

LOWDOWN

* Who: OutKast (Andre "Andre 3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton)
* Albums: Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994), ATLiens (1996), Aquemini (1998), Stankonia (2000), Big Boi and Dre Present ... OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2001)
* Latest: Idlewind, album out now, movie to follow in December