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LE:

So many people are psyched that you’re in Toronto.  New fans and old skoolers that have followed you for a long time.  Are you enjoying the city and have you had the chance to get out and get a feel for our culture?

Andre:

I love Toronto.  The people are really cool.  They’ve been really great to us while we’ve been here.  Because it’s been cold for the most part, I haven’t got out a lot but the few times I did get out, it was fun.  I love the shops, the little boutiques and haberdasheries around town.  I’ll be back for sure but I want to come back when it’s a lot warmer and I want to come back when it’s changing from summer to fall.  I heard the fall time is beautiful.

LE:

What has stood out for you the most since you’ve been here – that perhaps you were surprised to learn?

Andre:

Really more than one individual thing I guess.  The people in Toronto.  I love place where it’s a mix of different cultures in one place.  And in Toronto, you have that. 

LE:

There’s a lot of talent in our city – both musically and the other arts.  Have you come across any Canadian actors on the set that you feel stood out to you? 

Andre:

This film (Four Brothers) is an American film so most of the cast were American.  A lot of [Canadian actors] do theatre and stage.  They’d invite me to come by and see their stage plays and stuff to see them really get down. 

LE:

What challenges you the most in acting?

Andre:

I think the challenge is actually becoming another person.  That’s the challenge that I love – that’s why I really do it.  Directors and producers would call and ask me to come out for auditions and when I started reading scripts, it was just great.  And I said, ‘let me try this out’. 

LE:

What made you choose this film?  Was it the role in particular or the director, John Singleton? 

Andre:

With Four Brothers, it was a combination of things.  It was John Singleton – he actually called me first and asked me about being in the film.  He had sent the script and I thought it was a great script.  I didn’t know if I wanted to play the character at first then he assured me that Jeremiah (that’s the character I play) was not going to be a one-dimensional type character.  I thought that was cool.

LE:

Is he the strongest of the four brothers? 

Andre:

It’s four brothers and we all grew up together.  We were all knuckleheads as children.  My character, Jeremiah, was the only one that stayed back in Detroit with our Mom and kind of made something of himself.  My other brothers were all out wilding and doing their own thing.  I have a family, I have two girls and a wife so I’m pretty much the more calm one – I guess you could say that.  When our Mom gets killed, all the brothers come back into town.  It’s myself, Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson and Garrett Hedlund.  It’s strange.  People are going to wonder how are you all brothers?  Two Black guys and two White guys.  What happened is that we were all adopted when we were kids.  And someone killed our Mom and we have to go and find out who did it. 

LE:

That’s a great story.  Are you excited about it?  It sounds as though there’s been camaraderie on the set – that there’s a healthy vibe there. 

Andre:

Yes.  I’m an only child so I really don’t know what it’s like to have brothers but on the set we actually get along like we’re really brothers and we start to take on the characteristics of our character in the movie.  You know, Mark Wahlberg, he’s supposed to be the oldest brother and he actually acts that way.  He has the most seniority in the film and we look up to him.  We see his professionalism.  He tells us about him making that transition.  It’s funny because myself, Tyrese and Mark, we all come from a music background and then have gotten into film.  So, he’s pretty sensitive to that – understanding and talking to us and letting us know. 

LE:

I think it’s an excellent casting choice. 

Andre:

Thank you.  (smiles)

LE:

Making a transition into speaking about music, I know that you’ve done some work with Esthero here.  Do you know any other Canadian artists?

Andre:

I remember a couple of years ago, there was this guy that had skills.  Kardinal. 

LE:

Do you notice any difference in the Canadian hip hop? 

Andre:

No, not really.  Honestly, I don’t know a song by Kardinal but I just remember watching a video and listening to him rhyme and saying ‘Hey, that guy has skills’

LE:

Not being a hip hop head at all, I feel that hip hop started out to vent and elevate consciousness and awareness and I feel that maybe it’s taken another turn.  The question is, do you feel that it’s taken another turn?

Andre:

Yes, for sure.  But I think a lot of people fail to realize that hip hop started – people want to say that it started as a conscious thing - but it really started off as kids in a basement, bullshitting, having fun.  Not really talking about nothing – just rhyming.  Out of bullshit, they started to say what was going on around but it was still rhyming and having fun.  I think that it went more mainstream when it’s not so threatening.  Hip hop did get a lot of attention in the 80’s when groups started being really serious and vulgar.  You had cases against Two Live Crew, you had controversy around Public Enemy.  Hip hop in the 80’s got a lot of attention because it was serious.  It was NWA – you know “F**k the Police”, it was Two Live Crew – “Me So Horny” and just the vulgar stuff.  That’s how they saw it.  I think now hip hop has gotten so easy.  And it’s formulated. 

LE:

Why do you think?

Andre:

Rappers have gotten successful and other youngsters look up to them.  Hip hop finally started getting paid in the 90s.  And once it started getting paid … well, hip hop is one of the only jobs in America where you can be on the street one day and make one hit and sell millions of records and finally you’re paid.  It only takes a hit – you don’t have to go to college for four years, you don’t have to do the leg work.  So you have a lot of kids now – that’s all that want to do is hip hop.  It’s crazy because they see people like Master P, they see people like Puffy, they see people like Jay-Z with Bentleys and they think it was easy.  So, what I’m saying, you’ve got people that rhyme and say that Jay-Z did it this way or Puffy did it this way or this song made a hit so let me call the Neptunes and let me get a beat from the Neptunes. 

But honestly, it’s taste.  Because even the guys that are making these ‘easy’ records, I wouldn’t say that they’re not real, they were safe. 

LE:

Do you think that perhaps some of them didn’t come from a hard and difficult place?

Andre:

Some of them didn’t come from it but at the same time, that’s an argument too, because if hip hop is an art form, just like painting is an art form … do I have to be a killer to draw somebody get killed?  Or somebody laying there dead?  It’s all creative so if you have such a creative mind where you can create a story about a guy in the hood going through this and you make it believable, that’s actually a greater feat to me than somebody who’s actually from it.  Somebody’s who’s from it, they’re just saying what they see.  But creating a whole life?  You can look at it two ways.

LE:

I think a lot of people are real with it.  The hip hop fans that have been there from the get, I feel like they think that hip hop may be more watered down.

Andre:

That is true.  It is more watered down.  You also have hip hop purists.  You’re always going to have that but you have to remember times change and music changes.  I mean if Marley Marl or KRS-One listened to a record now and say, ‘aw, that’s watered down hip hop’, that’s kind of unfair. That’s almost like saying if you’ve got funk bands from the 70s, they say, ‘man that music you all doing now, is watered down because you all are using beat machines instead of a real drummer’.  I mean, come on!  Some great songs were made with drum machines. 

LE:

Outkast has skyrocketed and now your acting career is launching – what’s the biggest adjustment you’ve had? 

Andre:

It’s just recognition because we’ve been around for 10 years and we didn’t start getting noticed until Stankonia until MTV started playing it. 

LE:

Why do you think that is? 

Andre:

You never know, you never know.  Things always change, every album sounds different but I don’t know. 

LE:

Was it cool at the Grammys?

Andre:

It was all right.  I mean, I like awards, especially Grammys.  All the other ones are ok because they’re People’s Choice Awards where people get voted because they think you’re cute or something like that.  But the Grammys are voted on by musicians – by the whole Committee- you know you have to be on the board to vote for the Grammys.  So, these are people that do classical music – you know it’s everybody – world music.  They actually sit there and vote on who it is.  If you get recognition from your peers, that’s a whole other thing. 

LE:

As far as your acting career, are there any adjustments that you’ve had to make? 

Andre:

It’s all just avenues to get some creativity out.  Just to get some energy out some kind of way.  I guess the biggest adjustment when it comes to acting is letting go.  Letting loose.  Because as an entertainer, the audience, they don’t get to see every emotion of you, they only get to see happy and more happy.  As a musical audience, they don’t see you mad, they don’t see you cry, they don’t see you embarrassed, they don’t see you sad, because all that is not good for your career as a musician.  But as an actor, you have to be in touch with every one of those emotions so sometimes it’s hard to tap into those if for years, you’ve been hiding it.  So, that’s the hardest thing in acting. 

LE:

Musically or on the acting tip, if you could work with any artist, living or past, who would it be?

Andre:

Anita Baker, John Coltrane and Minnie Ruperton.  I just would like to know what we would come up with. 

LE:

Did you ever want to give up when you were on your way up?

Andre:

Hell yeah!  Plenty of times.  I feel like once I’ve done something, I’m ready to move on.  So, a lot of times, people around you are not ready for you to move on.  So, sometimes, you have to hold on and that’s not really a happy place to be either. 

LE:

The Outkast movie is coming up … When is it coming out?

Andre:

It’s a 1930s musical starring myself and Big Boi.  I play a mortician and Big Boi plays a club owner.  I co-wrote the story with Bryan Barber -  he wrote the script.  The end of this year, early next year.  The next Outkast album will be the soundtrack – it’s kind of like an attached thing. 

LE:

So, what’s in your CD player right now?

Andre:

In my CD player right now is new beats, new music.  I’ve been through a silent period where I haven’t been listening to anything because I’m not really inspired right now.  Even the old stuff that I used to love, I don’t feel the same way about it.  So, I’m going to have to create some music that I like to play.

LE:

So, right now it’s just beats and trying to get into that mindset. 

Andre:

Yeah, trying to find a new place.  Trying to find a new thing to get excited about. 

LE:

What do you want people to remember you for?

Andre:

Honestly, I hope it’s not for a certain category.  I hope it’s not just that people remember great songs or a great film … because I’m not done.  I have too much that I have to do.  So, I hope that people remember by the time I’m done that he was a creator, like an idealist, that he had dreams that he wanted to do and just did ‘em.  He was a dreamer.  That’s all.