{"id":973416,"date":"2019-11-09T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-11-09T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=901954"},"modified":"2019-11-09T07:00:36","modified_gmt":"2019-11-09T14:00:36","slug":"big-boi-wants-to-keep-his-owls-forever-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/big-boi-wants-to-keep-his-owls-forever-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Boi Wants to Keep His Owls Forever-Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cGimme that butt!\u201d<\/span> Big Boi<\/a> bellows from behind the mixing board of his famed Atlanta studio, Stankonia. The call for butts is addressed to Hootie Hoo, a sleepy Eurasian eagle-owl perched next to him. Along with Hoodini, Simon, and Tula, Hootie is one of four pet owls the rapper lets roam freely around the space.<\/p>\n

Not that there\u2019s much \u201croaming\u201d going on. \u201cOnce they perch, they\u2019re there unless you\u2019re gonna feed them or they see something run across the floor,\u201d Big Boi says of his flock. While they mostly spend time in his home, separate from the smaller animals he owns that the owls may try to chase, he sometimes brings them by Stankonia while he\u2019s recording, as well. \u201cI can sit here and smoke 10 blunts and they won\u2019t move.\u201d He quickly clarifies: \u201cI don\u2019t smoke around no birds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big Boi developed his obsession with the nocturnal bird a few years ago, when his assistant introduced him to Roy Lau, an exotic-animal trainer. He had owned smaller birds in the past, like cockatoos and finches, but they never lived very long. When Lau brought some owls by Stankonia a couple years ago, Big Boi quickly fell in love with owls\u2019 mythical \u201cwisdom.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s when Simon came into the picture,\u201d he says of his first pet owl.<\/p>\n

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Of course, owls were not Big Boi\u2019s first foray into pet ownership. He is a longtime animal lover and has been a licensed pitbull and French bulldog breeder with his brother for over 20 years. He has had sharks in his personal aquariums, Persian cats and a continued fascination with exotic animals, now made easier by frequent visits to Lau\u2019s own animal menagerie. Though owls are a newer element of his lifelong animal obsession, he noticed that OutKast\u2019s 2000 \u201cMs. Jackson\u201d video featured an Eagle owl, the same breed as Simon, Hootie Hoo and Hoodini.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee how God work?\u201d he comments on the coincidence.<\/p>\n

Though the birds aren\u2019t particularly emotive \u2014 their expressions range from \u201cslightly annoyed\u201d to \u201cvaguely disgruntled\u201d \u2014 they have distinct personalities. \u201cTula is the chillest,\u201d Big Boi says. \u201cHoodini is very rambunctious.\u201d Owls\u2019 ability to connect despite limited facial movement inspired the much more excitable Big Boi to write an upcoming children\u2019s book on how people with autism communicate. \u201cI have family members and friends with children on the spectrum,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Though his experience has been positive, Big Boi cautions, \u201cI don\u2019t encourage everybody to [own owls]. You gotta have the space, time, and knowledge of the bird,\u201d which, Lau says, can live for 70 years in captivity. The owls sleep at Lau\u2019s bird habitat, but Big Boi has an official owl license and is constructing a permanent home at his 40-acre ranch. He\u2019s even bought a deep freezer to hold the dead mice he feeds them. \u201cMy wife is creeped out by that shit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGimme that butt!\u201d Big Boi bellows from behind the mixing board of his famed Atlanta studio, Stankonia. The call for butts is addressed to Hootie Hoo, a sleepy Eurasian eagle-owl perched next to him. Along with Hoodini, Simon, and Tula, Hootie is one of four pet owls the rapper lets roam freely around the space. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-973416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 07:11:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}