LOS ANGELES -- Rumours be damned, the two co-creators of OutKast are still friends, still collaborators and still making music together.
That's the word from both Antwan Patton, a.k.a. Big Boi, and Andre Benjamin, a.k.a. Andre 3000.
"That is my dog for life!" Patton tells reporters as he and Benjamin sit together -- looking happy, exchanging quips, expressing mutual love -- during interviews related to Idlewild, their first feature film together.
The two have been friends since Grade 10 in Atlanta. "We had the brainchild OutKast," Patton says. "We had that idea and that principle has never left us. We created this and nothing that movies or music can do can break this up."
And, Patton says, "We're still making songs together."
But that does not mean OutKast is guaranteed a long future as a hip hop act, Benjamin explains.
"As for the future of OutKast, we're really not saying what we're going to do next," he says. "We're concentrating on what we're doing now, which is the Idlewild movie and the Idlewild soundtrack."
The soundtrack CD is set for release on Tuesday, although some of the 19 songs are already in play. The technically spectacular musical drama opens Friday as a risky fusion film that combines hip hop with music and dance going back to the 1930s.
Benjamin said the rumours that he and Patton were "drifting apart" and perhaps even splitting up came about because, in the absence of any other kind of scandal, the media wanted to speculate on their evolving lives.
Patton founded his own Atlanta-based record lable, Purple Ribbon, in 2004 but Benjamin has not joined in, preferring movie work instead. Musically, each has done separate songs in addition to collaborations.
"As far as the rumours (go), I think you've got to say we've been doing this for 12 or 13 years," Benjamin says. "We ain't shot nobody. We ain't killed nobody. We ain't slapped nobody ..."
"We ain't gone to jail," Patton interjects.
"I ain't sleeping with Paris Hilton," Benjamin adds. "So what can you talk about, you know?"
As a result, Patton complains, the media reports "some dumb s--t" about the status of OutKast or their friendship.
"We understand it," Benjamin says. "But we are definitely not breaking up or drifting. We are grown men now. We don't hang out the same. We hang out but we don't hang out every day like we used to. We don't live in the same house like we used to.
"It's kind of like your brother you grew up with and now you've got to get your own house and you've got your own family. He's got kids (Patton is married and settled, with two children). I've got my son (Benjamin is single but has a son from an earlier relationship). It's a game. But we still trip out like 10th grade."
