Big Boi of Outkast hosts second annual Champions of the Arts Awards

George Clinton and Antwan Andre "Big Boi" Patton
Photo courtesy of The Big Kidz Foundation

When Antwan André Patton or “Big Boi,” graduated high school he graduated with a GPA of 3.68, he bargained with his mother that as long as he made good grades in high school he could move to Atlanta,  and pursue his dream of becoming a rap artist with friend Andre Benjamin better known as Andre 3000, or Dre, to long time Outkast fans. Together the two formed Outkast, an award winning rap duo. 

Now, 20 years into a successful rap career, Patton is working hard to give children the same opportunities he sought out as a young boy in Savannah, Ga. Two years ago he established the Big Kidz Foundation, an organization dedicated to making the high arts accessible to underprivileged children in the Atlanta metro area. At the second annual Big Kidz Champions of the Arts Awards, honorees Hinton Battle and George Clinton emphasized the importance of people and organizations who are working to preserve the arts in their own communities. Big Boi says the arts were detrimental to his success and opened doors for him he didn’t know existed.

“The arts are something that saved my life. I had a dream and I wanted to give that to kids,” Big Boi says.

Egypt Sherrod and Big Boi
Photos courtesy of The Big Kidz Foundation

The Big Kids Foundation includes a travel program, a youth empowerment program that teaches children the tools to effectively use their voice, a talent program focusing on the arts, a financial training program, mentorships and more. Patton is passionate about the work his foundation does with children in the community and he believes the most important part is the exposure students receive.

“I love the travel program when I started traveling from Atlanta to New Zealand to Australia to Japan you see that Atlanta is a small part of the world," Patton continues.

George Clinton, the lead singer of the legendary band Parliament Funkadelic, agrees with Patton. He attributes his success an artist to being exposed to the arts in school.

“It’s very important that they have a good vocabulary of art and music of all kinds. It’s most important because they don’t have it in the schools anymore,” Clinton says. “As a child I was exposed to drums, guitars, strings all of that and most of that is not in schools anymore. We need things like this to take place so kids can have a good assortment of style and culture.”

Clinton believes the lack of music in schools is an issue better handled within the community. He, like Hinton Battle, embraces the grass roots effort taking place within the Black community involving children and the arts. Battle who was the first person to play the Scarecrow in the original Broadway production of The Wiz, starred in Miss Saigon and The Tap Dance Kid - both roles for which he earned  a Tony Award - applauds organizations like the Atlanta Music Project, Little Black Pearl in Chicago and The Big Kidz Foundation for the work they do. He understands the importance of learning the foundation of arts at an early age.

Big Boi, George Clinton, Hinton Battle,
Mark Kent of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Jennifer Lester
     Photos courtesy of The Big Kidz Foundation

“I had a non-profit in New York called Hinton Battle Theatre Laboratory and one of our initiatives was to go out into the community. We gave them free classes ballet, jazz, tap voice totally free,” Battle explains. “You mix what they want and what the need. You make them understand the importance of the technique which is going to give the longevity, because without the technique you have a limited run. We made it fun; you have to make it fun for them you have to give them what they want."

Battle, a Tony Award winning choreographer, says being exposed to the arts was something he needed growing up in the inner city, especially during a time when many young people, much like today, weren’t getting an arts education.

“It has the to be the people like Antwan; we have to go out and make it happen because the schools don’t have the money and the government is giving up the funds," Battle says. “When I was coming up the opportunities were not there I had to make the opportunities.”