Big Boi Bringing ‘Funkiness’ to New Modest Mouse Album

Big Boi admits he's only been a fan of Modest Mouse "for a minute" in a new interview with MTV, who caught up with the 'Shutterbug' rapper after he blasted Twitter last week with the news he was in the studio with the indie rockers.

"We're all musicians and producers and artists, and it's just like a big-ass brainstorm, a brain-stormin', tsunami, typhoon, tectonic-plates-movin' kind of thing," Big Boi explained. "We do all types of music, so to get the chance to jam with a jammin'-ass band, I knew it was going to be cool. We had a vibe too. We made a couple of records that are just jamming. It's a hodgepodge of funkiness."

Big Boi, along with longtime Outkast producer Chris Carmouche, holed up with the Portland-based six-piece at his Stankonia Studios in Atlanta, because that's where "they had to come catch the vibe." The unlikely ensemble put in 14-hour days for about a week, with Big Boi only taking on production duties, so far. Carmouche described the recorded tracks as being everything from "enchanted and enlightened" to "hard-core."

While most media outlets are psyched to hear what kind of music will come out of the union, they are also at a loss as to what it will sound like. This budding friendship has basis for a really good outcome. Modest Mouse started off as the quintessential college radio band in the mid-'90s and helped bring indie rock to bigger audiences when latter songs like 'Gravity Rides Everything' and 'Float On' got picked up for mainstream radio and TV ads.

Big Boi, on the otherhand, has done the opposite. Finding mainstream success with Outkast in the '90s, his solo debut 'Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty,' released last year, has found unprecedented success on the indie circuit and the rapper has been the alternative hip-hop presence at smaller, college-crowd focused festivals.

And, while Big Boi hasn't hopped on the mic just yet for what will be Modest Mouse's sixth studio album, it doesn't mean he's not up to it. "If there needs to be some rapping on there, I will destroy it, but right now, we're just really marinating with the music to see where everything's going to go," he says. "... Just know this mother----er is jamming, man. Believe me."