“He said he had to do some Gillette shit”

When I read this out of context, I could only hope it was about Gael Garcia Bernal or Adrien Brody. Please let this be about Brody turning down a spot in The Pianist II: This Time It’s Personal.

Or please say GGB couldn’t fit Even Amores Perros into his busy schedule.

Whatever you do, don’t tell me the speaker is Big Boi and the “he” is Andre 3000. PLEASE.

Village Voice (via Vulture):

So lets talk label bullshit. Last album Laface was fronting on clearing Andre 3000. Is that still the case?

Big Boi: No, that’s all cleared up now. He could’ve been on any song he wanted to. I gave the motherfucker about 5 songs, but I guess he was just too busy. He said he had to do some Gillette shit [room erupts in laughter]. No for real. He said he had some contractual obligations.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. [Cue very sad story time dream sequence montage.]

A long time ago, there was a group called Outkast. The group had two members, childhood friends, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton and Andre “Andre 3000” Benjamin. In 1994 they made an album titled Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and it was perfect. In 1996, the released another album, ATLiens, and it, too, was perfect. In 1998, a third album was released, Aquemini, and it was really perfect. In 2000, their fourth album, Stankonia, wasn’t perfect, but was still better than pretty much everything.

They started off 4-for-4.

It’s at this point that the beginning of the end began. 2003 ushered in their most popular work, the double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. People love it, but for the most part they were two solo albums packaged together. They both made appearances on a few tracks (“Knowing,” “Ghettomusick,” “Roses”) and co-wrote a bunch, but a rift was in the air and I didn’t like it.

2006 gave us Idlewild, which never happened.

And since then, there have been very few joint Outkast ventures. The most hopeful was 2008’s “Royal Flush,” an incredible track originally intended to be on Big Boi’s debut solo album, Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, featuring Andre and Raekwon, but it was removed due to label complications. Once Big Boi’s album came out, in 2010, it was noticeably Andre-less. The only appearance was a writer and producer credit for one song, “You Ain’t No DJ” (feat. Yelawolf). That’s it.

And now we’re here. Less than a month from Big Boi’s highly anticipated second solo album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumours, we learn that Andre “could have been on any song he wanted to” and was given “5 songs,” but was too busy because of “Gillette shit.”

Apparently after Big Boi said that, the room erupted in laughter. If I were there, I most certainly would have fallen out of my chair into my own puddle of tears. This might be the saddest news of 2012. I need a hug.