[Michael Blue Williams Working With OutKast]

I think that when you talk about OutKast and the branding and how we grew and the group grew up, I think the first person we have to thank would be L.A. Reed. L.A. never put restraints on the guys. He always let them do what they knew how to do. I tell people that it was a blessing that we had a unique relationship. Because Big Boi and Dre, originally from Atlanta, from the south, they had a southern perspective and a southern appreciation of the music. And they had the unique way that they wanted it to sound and how it was.

Me coming from New York, I had a different perspective. I understood New York and the music industry, and the business side, and how the business industry looked at everything. And I think the combination of my New York way and my hustling New York style and their southern flavor and what they had created a type of perfect storm for us to win fights when it was like if I went in to see L.A. and creatively it seemed a little outside the box, the guys, L.A. had to respect them so he let them live. If I came in and it was business that needed to be handled, he had to respect my business acumen.

So we gained the success that we earned by being able to win a lot of fights and being able to take those risks. And when we won, it gave us a little more room the next time. And I think what really helped us when we got to Stankonia and The Love Below and Speakerboxxx, is that by then, OutKast fans had given us such a wide berth to take chances and to express and do things differently and live, that we just got into a groove where it was we just do what we do.

We don’t worry about what anybody else is doing. The guys aren’t copying radio or hearing what other people are doing musically. They just do what they do. I’m not sitting around trying to market and do the same thing with each project. I’m constantly looking at where the world is at that particular time right before we come out and how can we get in and make an impact or how do we market this record and do it a little differently. And I think that combination and Big, Dre, and myself, we stay in our lanes. We stay within our camp. I don’t make music. I let them make music. They let me do what I do on the marketing and dealmaking. And it’s proven a very successful formula for us.

I think if there was a moment that was more like a turning point than – I don’t think we ever sat around and said we was gonna do something totally new. I think it’s just always worked out that, “I got an idea. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody do it before, but I got an idea.” Later when you look back, everybody’s like, “Yeo, this is new and it’s groundbreaking.”

But I think the turning point for our career was we had an opportunity to go on tour with Lauryn Hill. And I always have to thank Lauryn and shout him out for taking us out on that tour and giving us the opportunity. But the truth of the matter is Lauryn and them didn’t want to pay us what we felt we were worth on that tour. And I saw the tour as a huge opportunity for us to go from being the southern rap band to getting in front of Lauryn’s fans. And this was The Miseducation of Lauryn and they had just come off of selling 12 million _____ albums. And she was on her roll for this. And she was going on tour. And I felt like if we could get in front of the Lauryn fans, I knew we could make those fans our fans.

So we went out on that tour for pennies. Lauryn and them got us. We got handled with the money. But it was worth it to me and I tell people all the time, Big Boi and Dre probably fired me ten times on that tour. ‘Cause we fought about the money. We fought about how much we were getting paid and whether we were shortchanging ourselves. But every night, I was just seeing the fans and their eyes were giddy and they were looking and they were sort of amazed by Dre and what he was wearing and amazed by Big Boi’s personality and the guys’ showmanship together. And every night, we went out there and we ripped that stage up. And we made it harder on Lauryn every night to come on that stage after us.

And from that tour, it changed the perception of us, I believe. Because the media and a lot of the media that decides whether you’re gonna be hot, sexy, and fly, was at those shows because they wanted to see Lauryn. And those that saw us were like, “Hey, this little group is doing their thing.” And I think that’s what opened us up to a lot of mainstream success and a lot of opportunities that weren’t there before. It also financially, when we finished that tour, our numbers almost doubled and tripled on what people were willing to pay for us to come through. And so the Lauryn Hill tour gave us the opportunity to step up from just being a normal group and take it up a level. I think after we did the Lauryn Hill tour, mainstream media, the cool media, everybody had their eyes on us. They were paying attention to what we were doing.

When we dropped the next album and we started out, we had Ms. Jackson and those types of hits, once we got a really big radio hit, now mainstream and everyone’s paying attention. We’re crossing over. So I had an opportunity for us to go on our own type of tour. So we went out on tour and I actually, me and the guys, I remember making sure we wanted to give somebody the opportunity that we had. So I remember us taking Ludacris out on that one with us. And we took Ludacris and he opened up for us. So Ludacris, when I look at Cris now and I look at where his sales are and where he is compared to some of his peers that came out with him, the reason that Ludacris sells two to four million records now is ‘cause he was in front of the same type of fans that we were in front of with Lauryn. People were like, “OutKast! OutKast!” And then they say Cris come out and kill the show every night.

I think that the crossover and the things that fed into it was that while we had songs like Ms. Jackson and we had the success that we were having, we were never – I was never afraid to book the guys to go do the winter X Games. I was never afraid to go and do skater events. The guys were like, “Yeo. The money’s right. We’ll go do it. Go ahead and do Credible and the Right Stuff.” So we would go and do those shows and rock them. And we’d go on tours in the summer. And we’d be on tour and going right before Moby on a tour or something like that. And we’d take Moby fans.

So whenever we would go on tour, we’d always take people’s fans. And that’s what always OutKast touring has always been about for us. It’s always been about getting out there and making new fans and making them ours. So if you put us before Lauryn Hill, we’re gonna make Lauryn Hill’s fans ours. If you put us on before Moby, we’re gonna make Moby’s fans ours. If you put us on tour with George Clinton, we’re gonna get the Parliament and all those fans. And that’s how we’ve always done it.

And so the touring aspect of who OutKast is was very vital, along with doing TV and always being able to translate the energy from our videos and what you saw on stage. A lot of groups, you see one thing in the video. It’s a different thing when you see them live, or it’s just a whole different – you’re not getting the same. With OutKast, the energy you see in the video is the same energy you see with them on stage. It’s the same energy that you see when they do David Letterman. So it’s no let down. You’re excited to see them perform Ms. Jackson on The Tonight Show. You’re excited to see them when you go see them in a concert. And that carried over with Bombs Over Baghdad into Ms. Jackson and then into Hey, Ya and The Way You Move.

So I really believe those and always maintaining that, and again, L.A. Reed and the label, and we’ve had fights and stuff like that, but when the guys feel like, “Yeah, we wore this outfit and we need whole new outfits for this to keep the energy and keep it fresh,” them letting us go ahead and giving us the money and wardrobe to go keep that fresh. And to do those things and keep the fans excited and guessing, or giving the guys the wardrobe money so that they can constantly come up with new looks on magazine covers and things like that. And I think that as management, it’s those fights that you do and the guys having the creative energy just to keep coming up with stuff. So it makes it easier for you to go fight. And each time you win, you get a bigger bat to go fight the label with.

And things just sometimes work out. I remember fighting with L.A. Reed about Dre performing at the half time of Super Bowl with the Justin and all that stuff. And we were like, “No, we don’t want to do it. We don’t want to do it.” In hindsight, it’s brilliant that we didn’t do it, ‘cause that was a crazy Super Bowl and everything. But I think there’s also been a lot of fate and a lot of things falling in the right place at the right time.

I always believed that OutKast could be as successful as we’ve been. I’ve actually felt like we could be even bigger than we are. When I first started managing OutKast, when I got to know the guys, I sort of had a chip on my shoulder ‘cause I felt like people were talking about the Moonies when we first came out. And then it was ’95 in the south, so people were never really giving the guys their props. And then when we came up to New York and it was the Source Awards and all this other stuff, I always felt like we were getting jerked. I think for the first two albums, we ran around with a chip on our shoulder like trying to make people pay attention.

And so my goal eventually went from when we started getting the critical acclaim and getting five mikes and stuff and things like that, I started going from wanting to be the biggest rap group in the world, to wanting to make the guys the biggest just group, band in the world. So to me, as much success as we’ve had, I’m still not done with what I think we can really be. I want to be what the Eagles and the Rolling Stones and those groups are for a generation of people. I want to be able to look up in 20 years and if the guys want to go on the road, that we can fill up stadiums like the Eagles and those people can and make $50-60 million a summer just touring out and just touring in the summer. ‘Cause I really think that we’ve created a brand that’s gonna last and we’re gonna have the options to do what we want to do.

I think creatively, I think I studied their managers. I studied some of their moves, Irving Azoff, who manages the Eagle’s, and Doc that’s managed Bon Jovi, all these types of managers. I find that one thing is that most of the time they’ve had the same manager so it’s been a formula that works well. So there’s some consistency. I find that every group goes through some time where they need some space apart to appreciate and really step back and really soak in everything that they have accomplished and done.

I think the similarities is that we just really we’ve had that type of run that great bands have at one point. When you look at a great band’s career U2 or this, you can look at a string of albums in a row or you can look at what that groundbreaking landmark album that defined that group is. And then they turn around and follow it up or two albums later they follow up.

And that’s the difference, I think, between average artists and great artists. I think great artists have more than one defining album. I think when you’re a great group, when you’re a great band or a great artist, that your fans can sit around and argue about which album is better. I think when you are a good artist and you’re just an artist that had some good records, then everyone knows what your best album is. They go, “Oh, that was his first album.” I think with OutKast, we have people that argue that Aquemini was our best album. We have some that feel like Stankonia. We have some that feel The Love Below and Speakerboxxx. That means that we’ve laid out a good quality work and I think that that better work is always gonna last.

And I think I still manage the group with a chip on my shoulder. I don’t think that we get everything we should get out of it, all the press and everything that we should get sometimes. I don’t feel like we get mentioned high enough on greatest albums sometimes. I don’t feel we get mentioned in Most Relevant Artists sometimes. I feel like The Fujis sold 12 million records on the score. And I feel like that was a single album. We sold 13 million on our album, but it was a double album. So I feel like could we have sold 12 and could we really have made it 24 or something? It’s just my personal competitive edge is always trying to see what we can do better and how we can do it differently and push the envelope.

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