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In a July 2010 interview for The Village Voice, Big Boi revealed that he was working on the follow-up album to the critically and commercially successful Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, stating that he was "maybe about six songs into it". On May 24, 2012, Big Boi announced that he was about 80% complete with his next solo release. He also revealed that both he and André 3000 would be releasing solo projects prior to any Outkast project. On May 27, 2012, Big Boi announced that the album would be entitled Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors On June 9, 2012, Big Boi announced via Twitter that the album would be released on November 13, 2012. However, on November 1, 2012, after revealing the cover art, the album was pushed back to December 11, 2012.
On October 1, 2012, the first single "Mama Told Me" featuring Kelly Rowland was released. The album features guest appearances from Sleepy Brown, Phantogram, T.I., Ludacris, Kid Cudi, Little Dragon, Killer Mike, Kelly Rowland, ASAP Rocky, B.o.B, Wavves, Mouche, Scar, Bosko, Jai Paul, UGK, Big K.R.I.T., Theophilus London, and Tre Luce. On November 9, 2012, Big Boi debuted "Lines" featuring ASAP Rocky and Phantogram on his soundcloud account to a very good reception. The track had received over 100,000 listens on soundcloud in just over a day upon release. The album is noticeably lacking from any Andre 3000 features with Big Boi saying he had sent Dre over 5 songs he could've gotten on but "contractual obligations" kept him from doing them.
Music and lyrics
Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors has a maximalist production style and music that incorporates aggressive Southern hip hop, Detroit basslines, indie sounds, and funk. Its songs are characterized by strong hooks. Ted Scheinman of Slant Magazine finds it to be exemplary of a recent "collusion between rap and indie acts", and calls the album "profoundly atmospheric, not in the triumphalist Kanye vein, but with enough melodic hooks on which to hang songs that are both thumping and bittersweet." Pitchfork Media's Miles Raymer attributes the album's stylistic influences to Big Boi's past few years performing at festivals with indie rock and electronic acts, writing that it may be viewed as "an outgrowth of rap's artsy ambitions" or "a compilation of indietronic-rap fusion tied together by one voice".
Big Boi's lyrics explore carnal and emotional subject matter such as relationships. He raps with a confident, morally transparent persona and a polyvocal delivery that uses devices such as enjambment and deconstructionism. Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly characterizes Big Boi's lyrics on the album as "purple psychedelic prose".
Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 72, based on 32 reviews. Simon Vozick-Levinson of Rolling Stone commended Big Boi for bringing his disparate collaborators "together in harmony" and found "even more" impressive "the ease with which Big Boi insinuates his smack-talking, game-kicking self into their midst". Will Butler of The A.V. Club asserted that the album "delivers" as a "feel-good record", with Big Boi "at his most selfless, honest, and exploratory now". Jon Pareles of The New York Times felt that, "even in Outkast, Big Boi was never merely a macho cartoon; now, he's revealing he's a grown-up." Slant Magazine's Ted Scheinman commented that the album's "reflexive eclecticism ... coheres on the strength" of Big Boi's rapping and felt that, "in the best sense, it's the conspicuous work of a magnanimous music lover". Dan Cairns of The Sunday Times called it a "multi-genre riot" and commented that it "demolishes the perception" of Big Boi as the uneccentric foil to André 3000. John Calvert of Fact called it "glossy, overwhelmingly kinetic and neon-colourful ... arguably the pop hip-hop production job of the year," and wrote that each of its "innumerable hooks" are "textured, accentuated and arranged in just such a way that they jump out at the listener like musical holograms."
In a mixed review, AllMusic's Andy Kellman was ambivalent towards Big Boi's collaborations and "inharmonious experiments", writing that he "adapts to the unfamiliar surroundings with little effort and often sounds comfortable, but the fusions are short on power." Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian called it "a good album in need of a brutal trim" and felt that "its over-reliance on guests blunts the clear ambition". David Amidon of PopMatters found it to be an "awkward" listen similar to Common's 2002 album Electric Circus, but emphasized "how fun most of this music is even as it feels weird to hear Big Boi hopping on top of ." Miles Raymer of Pitchfork critiqued that the album is "on the one hand a genre-busting statement of artistic restlessness" but also "a mess", and found Big Boi's "dextrous, technically capable" rapping to be its "saving grace". MSN Music's Robert Christgau gave the album a one-star honorable mention, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like." He cited "Apple of My Eye" and "She Hates Me" as highlights and quipped that Big Boi "claims hip-hop, represents r&b, ends up neither here nor there".
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number 34 on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 30,000 copies in the United States. As of January 30, 2013, the album had sold 61,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Cairns, Dan (December 16, 2012). "Pop, Rock & Jazz, Dec 16". Sunday Times. London. p. 28 (Culture supplement). Retrieved December 16, 2012. (subscription required)
