Maybe it's one of those cases where repetition leads to reality.

Big Boi — real name Antwan Patton, one half of beloved Atlanta hip-hop duo OutKast — has been waiting almost three years to extract his solo album from an industry morass. After he put out a pair of prerelease singles in 2007 and jumped from Jive Records to Def Jam in 2009, "Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty" finally emerged this week among whispers of "record of the year" and "his best work."

After walking the walk for so long, Big Boi is now talking the talk.

"This ain't no ill pimps; it ain't no blaxsploitation," he says, on the phone from Atlanta. "This is me, Sir Lucious Left Foot, your knight in rhyming armor! Hip-hop royalty. That's why I got my knighthood. I'm proven, tested and guaranteed, you know what I'm saying?"
Yes, Big Boi. Yes we do.

Big Boi is considered the more skills-based of OutKast's two rappers, and his partner, Andre 3000, the more progressive. But Big Boi's always had a flair for the flamboyant: fox furs, giant Cadillacs, funny nicknames.

"Big Boi's the guy who came in on some news, but I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser now, so Sir Lucious Left Foot, that's my grown person, the grown Big Boi," he says, explaining the persona behind the album title. "Left Foot, that's the player in me — you know, we put our best foot forward. And Chico Dusty, that's actually a nickname my father had when he was in the military. He was a pilot and a very brilliant guy. He was a bad, bad man — I'm talkin' 'bout bad! So that's me. I'm a daddy's boy."

"Left Foot" asserts 35-year-old Big Boi's dominance in a hip-hop landscape filled with fresh-faced pop stars. Like few albums of the past couple years, it balances dense lyricism with floor-filling beats, a distinct social conscience with exaggerated swagger — all OutKast hallmarks.
"I wanted to bring the melodies, the grooves and the sound back to the music," Big Boi says. "Everything sounds so programmed these days. I wanna put some music on!"

And so he does. "Left Foot" opens with what should be a standard, 90-second intro track that morphs into a trunk-rattling future-funk groove, repeating the album's mantra: "Feel me!" "Daddy Fat Sax" — the title a nod to another Big Boi alter ego — and "Shine Blockas," a leaked single featuring felonious MC Gucci Mane, are similarly immense club bangers.
But it's not all cred boosters: "Follow Us" is a foray into Hot Topic rap, with Big Boi's handpicked hip-hop boy band Vonnegutt singing the radio-ready chorus. The song seems like a concession to the demands for a hit single that drove Big Boi from Jive to Def Jam in the first place.

Two other collaborations demonstrate Big's tightrope walk between self-determination and mainstream pandering. He already had rising Atlanta star B.o.B on his radar in 2007, well before the young rapper debuted at Billboard's No. 1 earlier this year with the album "The Adventures of Bobby Ray."

"I love what he's doing, because I can see where B.o.B's gonna be at in a few years," Big Boi says. "He's like the newest cat I got on the record."

The song, "Night Night," hums over a spacey synth line and P-Funk-inflected chorus. (P-Funk maestro George Clinton later makes a memorable appearance on the weed anthem "Fo Yo Sorrows.") Ironically, B.o.B's contribution is limited to only the hook, as if Big Boi wanted to distance himself from B.o.B's Top 40 image.

Alabama upstart YelaWolf makes a far deeper impression. YelaWolf's gritty style is OutKast-influenced; his true-crime tales and tongue-twisted take on southern suburban poverty confound self-deprecating humor, egotism and realism. He gets two full verses on "You Ain't No DJ," the only album track produced by Andre 3000, and elevates it to one of "Left Foot"'s strongest songs. Not surprisingly, it's about the creativity gap between manufactured pop stars and more dedicated artists — perhaps the album's prevailing theme. Just don't call it political.

"It's not even about that," Big Boi says. "If you know about OutKast records, or anything we write, our verses are all over the place. Man, I'm an MC first, you know what I'm saying? So I'm the voice of the people. Nothing no different from what we've been doing. People trying to call it conscious or political — because I have a voice! Yeah, I'm gonna express that. It's about life experience, things that kind of affect you that you wanna speak out on. I mean, everybody don't just be in the club all day. I'm speaking for the regular people."

Like "Speakerboxxx," Big Boi's quasi-solo segment of the multiplatinum OutKast album from 2004, genuine enthusiasm ultimately carries the record.

"With that album, that was really a solo effort, but this right here is for me to claim the whole thing," he says. "This album right here, 'Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty,' is the follow-up to 'Speakerboxxx.' It's the same thing: It's for hip-hop lovers. If you like any OutKast album, from 'Southernplayalistic' up to 'Idlewild,' you gonna love this record right here. The beats are hard, the lyrical content is crazy. I finally got the chance to turn my vocals up! I did it my way because I had to."

"Chico Dusty" is the sound of a prodigious talent making love to music. The passion and playfulness are infectious; the smarts and the statements are subtle. That all are present in equal amounts is what makes the album engrossing — maybe even worthy of the hyperventilated superlatives it has already received.

"You listen to my music, you gonna be jammin'; you gonna be goddamn dancing, and some line will go by you, and you're like, 'Hey, what was that?'" Big Boi says. "It's gonna make you go back and listen. We've been doing it for over a decade, man! I don't know why they pretending like they forgot!"