No. 1 Notre Dame has underdog in its DNA

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — The rankings say Notre Dame is No. 1 going into the BCS championship against Alabama. Plenty of folks aren't buying it, starting with the oddsmakers who currently have the Crimson Tide as about a touchdown favorite for the Jan. 7 meeting in Miami between two of college football's proudest programs.
The Fighting Irish aren't sweating the point spread. In fact, it's pretty much business as usual for Notre Dame, which has a chance to become the first team since 1984 to start the season unranked and end it as national champions.
"Everybody thought everybody was better than us," defensive tackle Louis Nix III said Monday. "Oklahoma was better than us. USC was better than us.
"We get it. We know how everyone thinks. We're just Notre Dame. Overrated Notre Dame. No one gives us credit for anything. Just the luck of the Irish, I guess."
History suggests that being the underdog in the BCS title game hasn't been a bad thing. Of the 14 BCS championship games played since the system was implemented in 1998, seven have been won by the underdog.
Alabama was a slight underdog last year after losing to LSU in the regular season, and then shut out the Tigers with the national title on the line.
In the 2005 championship game between Texas and Southern California, Vince Young and the Longhorns felt as if they were being talked about as nothing more than a speed bump on the road to USC's coronation as one of the greatest teams in college football history. Plus, Young was still seething over coming in second to USC's Reggie Bush in the Heisman Trophy voting.
The result: Texas 41, USC 38, and a performance for the ages by Young.
The following season, Ohio State reached the national championship game with a perfect record, No. 1 ranking and a Heisman Trophy winner in quarterback Troy Smith. Florida was the Buckeyes opponent and the question was: Did the Gators even belong in game?
Urban Meyer, the Gators' coach, made sure his players got that message. Even if it meant stretching the truth a bit. After a month of being told that nobody thought they had a chance to beat Ohio State, the Gators routed the Buckeyes 41-14 to start the Southeastern Conference's run of six straight BCS championships.
It's impossible to quantify what, if any, effect being the underdog has actually had on any of those "upsets." Any team that gets to a championship game must be good in the first place.
Whether Notre Dame can or will use the slights — real or perceived — as motivation remains to be seen.
"I've used the technique before during my time as a head coach," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said about playing the underdog card. "I don't know that that is pertinent because it's a one-game deal. It's all or nothing.
"Both teams have different dynamics to deal with because of the long layoff. Preparation is more important than any kind of fire and brimstone speech that I can bring to them."
Offensive coordinator Chuck Martin said the coaches don't even need to bring it up. The Fighting Irish have played all season like a team with something to prove.
"I think it's a little bit part of our kids' DNA now," he said. "We don't have to use it as much as maybe early in the year when we went on the road to Michigan State and they were ranked eighth and nobody was thinking we were very good. I think we've kind of just built it into who we are. Everybody likes telling us what we're not good at — which is fine by us. One of our strengths is knowing what we're not very good at. We try to play to our strengths and play away from our weaknesses."
It's a style that has led to more than a few close calls on the way to Miami.
Notre Dame beat Purdue and BYU by three points each. The Irish needed three overtimes to beat Pittsburgh by a field goal and went to overtime against Stanford, too. In both the Pitt and Stanford games, Notre Dame caught a few breaks. A missed field goal here, a questionable call by the officials there.
Meanwhile, except for its upset loss to Texas A&M, Alabama has rarely been challenged on its way to a third BCS title game appearance in the past four seasons.
The Tide is outscoring its opponents by an average of 28 points per game. Notre Dame's average margin of victory is 16 points per game, as the Irish have leaned on Heisman Trophy finalists Manti Te'o and a stellar defense while they developed first-year starting quarterback Everett Golson.
"I understand why people say Alabama's going to win," said Nix, the 325-pound anchor of Notre Dame's defensive front. "Great offensive line. Good quarterback. Great guys on the edge. They've been in the national championship twice in the last three years. I would probably pick Alabama, too.
"At the end of the day it's all about what's on the scoreboard."

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Big Ten teams all underdogs in bowl season

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Big Ten spent much of the year as a national punch line.
It might get worse during bowl season.
The Big Ten could only fill seven of its eight predetermined bowl slots — and each of those bowl-bound teams is currently an underdog.
From the five-loss Wisconsin team that still wound up in the Rose Bowl to the 6-6 Purdue squad that fired its coach, the beleaguered Big Ten isn't expected to do much of anything in the postseason.
The league went just 1-6 in bowl games in 2008. According to odds makers, things could go even worse in 2012.
"I'm not apologizing for us to go to the Rose Bowl with five losses," Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said during his press conference to announce he would coach the Badgers in that game. "I didn't have anything to do with two teams being ineligible in our division. That allowed us to play in that championship game, and we soundly defeated the champion from the other side."
That they did, thumping Nebraska 70-31.
Still, the current symbol for the league's plight has to be Badgers (8-5, 4-4 Big Ten).
They finished four games behind Ohio State and one behind Penn State in the Leaders Division. But the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions weren't eligible for the Big Ten title game, and the Badgers made the most of their lucky break.
Wisconsin is currently in upheaval after Bret Bielema stunned nearly everyone by bolting for Arkansas a few weeks ago. Alvarez will lead the Badgers in their third straight Rose Bowl, where they're about a touchdown underdog to 11-2 Stanford. Afterward, he'll resume his search for a new coach.
"It will be a great challenge for us, but I think it's a good matchup. I think it's a great bowl matchup. The game hasn't changed," Alvarez said.
The way Wisconsin manhandled the Huskers also took some buzz out of the Capital One Bowl.
Nebraska (10-3, 7-1) fell to the game in Orlando following their loss to the Badgers. The Huskers face Georgia (11-2) in a matchup that would have looked like good on paper — in mid-November.
While the Bulldogs were within about 5 yards of beating Alabama and earning a shot at Notre Dame in the BCS national championship, the Huskers were embarrassed by the five-loss Badgers a few hours later.
Georgia is a 10-point favorite over the seemingly reeling Huskers.
"They're resilient," Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said. "They look forward to going out and playing again. They were hurting, but you know what, they are grown men. You move on. That's what you have to do. We'll be ready to go."
Perhaps no bowl matchup epitomizes the current gap between the Big Ten and the powerhouse Big 12 and SEC more than Purdue-Oklahoma State in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.
Even though the Boilermakers fired coach Danny Hope, they're still on a three-game winning streak. Yet the Cowboys, who at 7-5 are just a game better than Purdue, are an 18-point favorite.
That's the biggest line of the postseason — bigger than even Florida State over MAC champs Northern Illinois in the Orange Bowl.
Minnesota (6-6, 2-6) is also a heavy underdog in its matchup with Texas Tech in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, even though the Red Raiders (7-5) lost coach Tommy Tuberville to Cincinnati.
Even with all those apparent mismatches, going 0-7 is probably a long shot for the Big Ten.
Michigan (8-4, 6-2) and South Carolina should make for an entertaining Outback Bowl. Few would be surprised if the Wolverines won their second straight bowl game under coach Brady Hoke.
Northwestern (9-3, 5-3) can reach the 10-win plateau for just the third time with a win over Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl.
The Wildcats, who were perhaps the only Big Ten team that can claim they were underrated in 2012, are just a 2-point underdog.
"Our guys are hungry. This is an opportunity for 10 wins for this ball club and to potentially be ranked in the top 15 in the country. That's an unbelievable foundation of success that this senior class will have laid. Ten wins makes a good season great," Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald said.
Michigan State and TCU are also a virtual toss-up in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl.
The Spartans were one of the nation's most disappointing teams, but five of their six losses were by four points or less.
Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio is hoping his team can finally catch a few break.
His Big Ten colleagues might be thinking along those same lines.
"One play here, one play there, we're a different football team. But you have to play what you've got. We want to point our compass north. I believe the glass is half full, not half empty," Dantonio said.

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Big 12 basketball lacking depth this season

The top of the Big 12 looks familiar, with Kansas in first place and ranked in the top 10.
The rest of the league doesn't appear to be nearly as deep as usual this season, its first with West Virginia and TCU instead of Missouri and Texas A&M.
No. 24 Oklahoma State (8-1) is the only other league team to join the ninth-ranked Jayhawks (8-1) in the Top 25 and nobody else received a single vote for Monday's poll.
This wasn't entirely unexpected, of course. Missouri won the conference tournament before bolting for the SEC and its currently ranked 12th. But beyond the Cowboys, nobody has emerged as a serious threat to the Jayhawks with non-conference play winding down.
Big 12 teams are just 2-10 against opponents ranked in the Top 25 and the league is seventh in overall RPI — behind the Atlantic-10 and the Mountain West. The inconsistent play of Baylor and Texas has a lot to do with that.
The Bears (7-3) were picked to finish second in the preseason poll, while the Longhorns (6-4) were slotted fourth. But Baylor has been up and down, while the Longhorns could find themselves at 6-6 at the end of the week.
Baylor's biggest win was about as big a resume builder as a team could ask for. The Bears knocked off Kentucky in Rupp Arena on Dec. 1, 62-55, snapping the Wildcats 55-game home winning streak. But Kentucky later fell out of the Top 25and Baylor lost at home to Northwestern.
The Bears have already lost to Charleston in Waco. But they've got a chance to pick up a pair of quality wins before meeting Texas in the league opener on Jan. 5. Baylor hosts BYU and plays at Gonzaga on Dec. 28.
Baylor coach Scott Drew said he saw positive signs after his team led by just two at halftime before rallying to beat USC-Upstate, 73-57.
"Early in the year I think that you are always adjusting, changing and tweaking," Drew said. "I'm so pleased with this effort though because we were able to defend and still take care of the ball and win. I thought that we made some extra effort passes. We made a more conscious effort to get the ball inside. We're learning how to get more touches inside."
Texas is scuffling in part because of a challenging schedule and the absence of point guard Myck Kabongo (NCAA eligibility investigation) and forward Jaylen Boyd (left foot injury).
If the Longhorns want to turn their season around, this would a good week to get started.
Texas, which doesn't have an upperclassman in its starting lineup, hosts No. 23 North Carolina on Wednesday and plays at No. 20 Michigan State on Saturday. A pair of wins would be a massive boost for a team that has lost to Division II Chaminade and by 23 points to No. 15 Georgetown.
"You've just got to go into it with a mindset of getting better every day. Build on the positive. And that's what we've been trying to do as a young group," Texas freshman guard Javan Felix said.
Of course, not everyone in the Big 12 is off to a slow start.
Kansas brought a seven-game winning streak into this week. Oklahoma State has already beaten Tennessee and North Carolina State behind freshman point guard Marcus Smart, who is averaging 13 points, seven rebounds and 5.2 assists a game and is on the short list of the game's top freshmen.
New coach Bruce Weber got Kansas State off to a respectable 7-2 start, and Oklahoma beat old foe Texas A&M 64-54 on Saturday to move to 7-2.
Iowa State (8-3), which was picked to finish eighth in the league, has lost to three quality opponents; Cincinnati, UNLV and Iowa.
Coach Bob Huggins led West Virginia to five straight NCAA tournaments out of the brutal Big East. Right now, the Mountaineers find themselves last in the Big 12.
West Virginia (4-5), fresh off a 15-point loss to No. 2 Michigan, is one of the nation's worst shooting teams at just 38.9 percent. The Mountaineers have lost to Gonzaga and fellow Big 12 team Oklahoma, but they've also fallen to Davidson and Duquesne.
"We'll win. We've won before and we'll win again," Huggins said. "We've got to continue to guard better and we've got to continue to rebound the ball better."

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Notre Dame's Kelly wins AP coach of the year

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — After two seasons as Notre Damecoach, Brian Kelly decided he wasn't spending enough time doing the best part of his job: coaching players.

Kelly changed that in 2012, and he shuffled his staff. Then, with Kelly more in tune to his team and the assistants in sync with the head coach, Notre Dame went from unranked to top-ranked.

For leading the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship for the first time, Kelly was voted Associated Press college football coach of the year.

"When you're talking about the coach of the year, there's so many things that go into it," Kelly said. "I know it's an individual award and it goes to one guy, but the feelings that I get from it is you're building the right staff, that you've got the right players and to me that is a validation of the program. That you put together the right business plan."

Kelly received 25 votes from the AP college football poll panel. Penn State's Bill O'Brien was second with 14 votes. Stanford's David Shaw (four), Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin (three), Kansas State's Bill Snyder (two) and Alabama's Nick Saban (one) also received votes.

Kelly is the first Notre Dame coach to win the AP award, which started in 1998.

Of course, the Irish haven't played for a national championship since 1988 and spent much of the past two decades trying to find a coach who could restore a program that was becoming a relic of its proud past.

It turns out Kelly was the answer.

He arrived in 2010 after two decades spent climbing the coaching ladder and winning big everywhere he worked. But in the world of college football, Notre Dame is a long way from Grand Valley State — where Kelly won Division II national titles — and Cincinnati, his previous stop, for that matter.

"I think the job tends to distract you," Kelly said earlier this week. "There are a lot of things that pull you away from the primary reason why you want to be head coach of Notre Dame, and that is graduate your players and play for a national championship.

"Now, to do that you have to have the pulse of your football team and you've got to have relationships with your players. If you're already going around the country doing other things other than working with your football team, it's hard to have the pulse of your team."

Kelly said he made a point of spending more time with the team this year.

"That's why I got into this. I want to develop 18 to 21 year olds. My development as the head coach at Notre Dame this year has been about getting back to why you would want to coach college players. You want to learn about them; you want to know their strengths and weaknesses; you want to help them with leadership skills; you want to help them when they're not feeling confident in their ability.

"For me, that is why it's been the most enjoyable year as the head coach at Notre Dame, is that I got a chance to spend more time with my team."

The first step, though, toward a successful 2012 season for Notre Dame can be traced to Feb. 10. On that day Kelly announced his coaching staff. The most notable change was moving Chuck Martinfrom defensive backs coach to offensive coordinator to fill the hole left when Charley Molnar became the coach of Massachusetts.

Martin was defensive coordinator for Kelly at Grand Valley State, then replaced his boss as head coach of the Division II power when Kelly was hired by Central Michigan after the 2003 season.

The move might have seemed odd to some, but Kelly, who built his reputation on offensive acumen, wanted a right-hand man who understood exactly what he wanted.

To replace Martin on the defensive side, Bob Elliot was hired from Iowa State to coach safeties. Harry Hiestand was hired away from Tennessee to replace offensive line coach Ed Warinner, and co-defensive coordinator Bob Diaco, who had been with Kelly at Central Michigan and Cincinnati, was promoted to assistant head coach.

"The voice of your coordinators has got to be in lock step with the head coach," Kelly said. "Now both of these guys have been with me a long time.

"Chuck Martin on offense, I wanted a voice that went back with me to Grand Valley State. And with Bob Diaco someone that goes back to Central Michigan with me. So yeah, it was important to get that voice right."

The last change Kelly needed to make involved Xs and Os. Kelly wanted to win now, but with a first-year starter and redshirt freshmen at quarterback. He had to adjust his style.

Out went the push-the-pace offense that had helped him reach two BCS games at Cincinnati. In came a more deliberate approach.

"We conduct the game differently," Martin said. "We set out how we thought this team could win with the personnel we had and with the young quarterback. Most people say 'OK, you're going to play the young guy, you're playing for the future.' We just went 12-0 with the young guy and he got yanked four times.

"The rest of the world wants 12-0 with no warts. We have plenty of warts. Somehow we're 12-0. Just goes to show the job (Kelly) did that we made it work week in and week out with what we have."

Kelly's ability and willingness to adapt have been his greatest strengths.

"He made some of his biggest changes ever in the last year. Going away from some things that really were his bread and butter, and 12-0 later, the guy did it again," Martin said.

"He saw what Notre Dame football needed in 2012 and he got to know this university."

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Spelman College to cut sports in bid to improve student health

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Spelman College, the oldest historically black U.S. college for women, is scrapping its competitive sports program in a bold effort to help students combat the troubling health statistics faced by African-American women.

The private school, based in Atlanta, Georgia, will cease competing against other colleges' athletic teams at the end of the current academic year. It will then put its $1 million annual sports budget toward improving the health of all 2,100 students, said college president Beverly Daniel Tatum.

The college plans to expand fitness programs such as strength training, Pilates and yoga, and is raising money for a new gymnasium, Tatum said.

The idea to try something different came after the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III athletic conference Spelman belongs to decided to disband.

"I started thinking about the state-of-the art wellness program we could develop if we reallocated the money we were spending on the sports program that was benefiting a very small number of students," Tatum said. "We could flip that script, and we could put that money into a program for everyone."

Health statistics for African-American women are disturbing, Tatum said, with higher rates of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure than other groups.

Fifty-one percent of black women over the age of 20 are obese, compared to 32.8 percent of white women, according to the American Heart Association.

An estimated 9.5 percent of African-American women have been diagnosed with diabetes, compared to 5.4 percent of white women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Spelman has 80 student athletes, and fields teams in volleyball, basketball, soccer, cross country, tennis, golf and softball. Division III teams are not allowed to offer sports scholarships, and Spelman does not recruit athletes, Tatum said.

The school's wellness program, on the other hand, has about 300 participants, nearly four times the number of student athletes. But the current wellness program has been limited by the sports teams, which often use athletic facilities for practice and games, Tatum said.

By expanding the broader program, "instead of learning how to play soccer or basketball, the focus will be on fitness for life," she said.

Tatum said she knew of no other college that has made a similar decision.

Colleges have been more likely to take the opposite approach - cutting physical education programs to fund sports, said Philip Haberstro, former president of the National Association for Health and Fitness.

The Spelman plan makes sense for many reasons, Haberstro said, including the potential to increase academic performance by improving the health of students.

"The mission of the college is education," he said. "I think there is a good, solid rationale for a college doing this."

Not everyone is pleased. Tatum said some student athletes upset about the decision have told her they were thinking about transferring.

"I understand the disappointment," she said. "I think the majority of them will still be with us, that there are other things they like about Spelman that they'll want to continue to be affiliated with. Certainly, that is my hope."

Sophomore Channing Carney-Filmore, who plays on the school's soccer team, said she initially was disappointed about the sports program being cut.

But she said she understood the greater potential benefit of instilling healthier lifestyles, though she doubted the idea would fly at larger schools with big sports programs.

"When you're at Spelman it makes sense," she said. "There aren't many people involved in sports. We're not known for our sports. We're known for academics."

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School Modesty Club Says Cover Up

High-school freshman Saige Hatch was sick of seeing her peers revealing too much skin when she came to school each day.

The 15-year-old saw midriff-grazing tops, exposed cleavage, short shorts.

"From elementary to middle school, and then to high school, I noticed immodesty," she told ABCNews.com. "I really wanted to start a club to bring awareness to it and bring remembrance to what modesty is."

Inspired by her brother's No Cussing Club, Hatch started the Modesty Club at South Pasadena High School in South Pasadena, Calif., in September to bring attention to her cause.

"A shift is coming, sneaking through the literal fabric of our culture," read a statement on the club's website. "Our bright heroic women are being made the fool. A fool to think that to be loved they must be naked. To be noticed they must be sexualized. To be admired they must be objectified."

While South Pasadena High School has a dress code that requires students to cover the "range of skin from armpit to 'The Bottom Line,'" defined as "a hand's width below the bottom of the buttocks," Hatch is crusading for a more traditional definition.

She said she views immodest dress as showing cleavage, showing one's midriff or one's shoulders. Immodesty also includes shorts, dresses, pants and skirts that are too short or tight, she said.

The Modesty Club only boasts 17 members at school, but Hatch said the website has helped to garner more than 1,000 members who come from all 50 states and 14 countries.

This week, Michael Cacciotti, the mayor of South Pasadena, commended Hatch for her efforts and granted her a proclamation. The city has declared Dec. 3 through the 7 "Modesty Week" in South Pasadena.

Cacciotti had granted her brother a similar proclamation when he started his own club.

"People are afraid to stand up," Hatch said. "I know there are a lot of people who wanted to start it, but sometimes it's hard to stand up and take the courage to start a club."

But Brent Hatch, Saige's father, said he was hesitant to let his daughter start the club after he saw what his son went through. When Saige's brother, McKay, started the No Cussing Club in 2009, it spurred thousands of hate messages.

"During the death threats and the bomb threats and the packages and the calls and all the chaos, my daughter said to me when she was in the fifth grade that she wanted to start a modesty club," said Hatch, who co-authored "Raising a G-Rated Family in an X-Rated World," with his wife, Phelecia. "I laughed and said it's not going to happen, especially with what McKay's going through.

"I said, 'You're going to get made fun of at school for going against the grain,'" he said. "My son, I could handle. But my daughter, I didn't know what was going to happen."

Saige was persistent, and ultimately her father caved.

He's finding that even though she has support, the mocking has returned.

"My van was egged, people graffitied on it," he said. "We had people call our house making threats again."

Saige said that as she moves forward with the club, she plans to put together an online petition to members of the film and magazine industries for more modest attire.

She has plans to write to clothing designers to make more modest clothing for women, in general, and to arrange to have a vote in school to enforce the dress code or switch to uniforms, she said.

But her biggest inspiration remains her brother.

"I want to make a change in the world, like he did," she said.

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Australian prank call radio to donate profits to nurse's family

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Australian radio station behind a prank call to a British hospital will donate its advertising revenue until the end of the year to a fund for the family of the nurse who apparently took her own life after the stunt, the company said on Tuesday.

Southern Cross Austereo , parent company of Sydney radio station 2Day FM, said it would donate all advertising revenue, with a minimum contribution of A$500,000, to a memorial fund for the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, who answered the telephone at the hospital treating Prince William's pregnant wife, Kate.

The company has suspended the Sydney-based announcers, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, scrapped their "Hot 30" programme and suspended advertising on the station in the wake of the Saldanha's death. Southern Cross said it would resume advertising on its station from Thursday.

"It is a terrible tragedy and our thoughts continue to be with the family," Southern Cross Chief Executive Officer Rhys Holleran said in a statement.

"We hope that by contributing to a memorial fund we can help to provide the Saldanha family with the support they need at this very difficult time."

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Lady Gaga accused of illegal gay rights promotion in Russia

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A political ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking legal action against American pop star Lady Gaga for promoting gay rights to minors during a concert on Sunday.

Vitaly Milonov, a member of the ruling United Russia party in the St Petersburg assembly and the architect of a city law that bans gay "propaganda", accused the singer of breaking the law at the beginning of her show.

"We saw that in addition to music, songs and such, there were direct calls for 12-year-old citizens to support the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community," Milonov said, adding that he would file a complaint to prosecutors over the singer's actions.

He had unsuccessfully called on authorities to bar people under 18 from attending Lady Gaga's show.

A vocal defender of lesbian and gay rights, Lady Gaga said offstage that her managers had received a call threatening her with arrest or a $50,000 fine if she spoke in support of the LGBT community, according to media reports.

The lower house of parliament is expected to consider legislation similar to the St Petersburg law later this month.

It is not clear whether it will pass. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, now the head of United Russia, said in an interview last week that "not all human relationships are subject to legal regulation".

Lady Gaga took Medvedev's comments as a sign of support for her show and thanked him on her Twitter microblog.

"Thank You Prime Minister Medvedev for not standing by your party's anti gay propaganda law & instead supporting my show+fans all over Russia," she said in her tweet.

Lady Gaga has a concert in Moscow on Wednesday.
Last month, a St Petersburg court rejected a $10 million compensation claim against U.S. pop star Madonna initiated by Milonov and a group of anti-gay activists who accused her of hurting their feelings by promoting homosexuality at a concert in the city in August.
Madonna has called the city law a "ridiculous atrocity".

Homosexuality, punished with jail terms in the Soviet Union, was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, but much of the gay community remains underground as prejudice runs deep.

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Rapper Big Boi brings electro sounds to new album

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rapper Big Boi  is trying new sounds and styles for his highly anticipated second album out on Tuesday, carving a successful solo spotlight beyond OutKast's devoted following.

Big Boi, whose real name is Antwan Andre Patton, is best-known as one-half of hip-hop duo OutKast with Andre 3000. The group, which went on indefinite hiatus in 2007, scored hits including "Ms. Jackson" in 2001 and "Hey Ya" two years later.

While Andre 3000 has remained relatively quiet, occasionally featuring on other artists' projects, Big Boi is releasing "Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors," following his critically successful 2010 solo debut "Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty."

Georgia native Big Boi, 37, described his latest album as "one-half OutKast, one whole of me," and told Reuters that the title was an homage to his late grandmother, who said before her death that if she were to write her life story, that would be the title.

Following his 2010 album release, the rapper spent 18 months on the road, touring a wide range of music festivals with eclectic rosters. The result?

"This album is more electronic," Big Boi said. "I've been doing 50- and 100,000-seat festivals all over the world. The crowds were not your typical hip-hop crowds. You bump into people backstage and you click naturally."

The rapper invited a few of the acts he met over his touring travels to his studio in Atlanta. Out of his sessions came collaborations with New York-based electro-pop duo Phantogram and Swedish band Little Dragon, who featured on one of the rapper's favorite tracks, the closing song, "Descending."

"('Descending') is just raw emotion. It's a form of therapy - just mourning my father. It was an emotional time for me recording that song," the rapper said of his duet with Little Dragon vocalist Yukimi Nagano.

Big Boi pledges that his sound will always be funky, regardless of evolving trends and influences.

"It's just more electro-funk. I used a lot of brass on the last album - a lot of traditional instruments. I still use the brass, but not as much. But the beats are still hitting hard."

The rapper has been making music since the early 1990s.

"I met Dre (Andre 3000) when we were in the 10th grade. We sat down like, 'Man, let's do it.' From that day forward, music has been the main focus of my life's journey. I love it."

His sound has evolved into a fusion of traditional hip-hop and R&B with electro-funk and soul, creating throwback songs with contemporary beats.

"The albums are like time capsules. They actually capture your life since the last time the listener heard you."

So far in his solo career, Big Boi has earned positive reviews from fans and critics, and said he was "humbled" by their warm response.

"I'm pleased that the people still love digging the music and that they're not scared to experience new sounds."

As for a possible OutKast reunion, Big Boi is tight-lipped.

For now, he remains dedicated to his solo efforts and has already completed more than half of album No. 3, which will contain some surprises for fans.

"I know people are like 'Damn, how does he keep doing it after all these years?' But this is what I was born to do and I'm still having fun. I'm just getting started."

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Jenni Rivera's family hopes Mexican-American singer still alive

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The family of Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera  said on Monday they are holding onto hope that she may still be alive, although U.S. officials said earlier that she died on Sunday in a plane crash in Mexico.

"In our eyes, we still have faith that our sister will be OK," Rivera's brother Juan told reporters outside the family house near Long Beach, California.

"We thank God for the life that he has given ... my sister," said Juan Rivera, also a singer. "For all the triumphs and successes she has had, and we expect that there will be more in the future."

Rivera, 43, died after the small jet she was traveling in crashed in northern Mexico on Sunday, U.S. officials said. Rivera's father, Pedro, told Telemundo television on Sunday that everyone on the plane had died. So far, authorities have not announced the recovery of any bodies.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was helping Mexican authorities with the investigation of the crash of the private Learjet LJ25.

The plane crashed at about 3:30 a.m. local time (4.30 a.m. EST) in the municipality of Iturbide some 70 miles south of Monterrey, from which the singer and six others were en route to Mexico City.

Rivera was to perform in the city of Toluca, 40 miles southwest of Mexico city, in central Mexico after a concert in Monterrey on Saturday night.

It is not clear what caused the crash, and the Mexican transportation ministry said the wreckage was strewn so far about that it was difficult to recognize the crash site.

Rivera was born in Long Beach to Mexican immigrants and lived in suburban Los Angeles. She was a giant figure in the Mexican folk nortena and banda genres.

She had sold 15 million albums in her 17-year career and garnered a slew of Latin Grammy nominations.

"The entire Universal Music Group family is deeply saddened by the sudden loss of our dear friend Jenni Rivera," the singer's record label said in a statement.

"From her incredibly versatile talent to the way she embraced her fans around the world, Jenni was simply incomparable," Universal added in the statement. "Her talent will be missed; but her gift of music will be with us always."

In recent years Rivera had branched out into television with a reality television show and as a judge on the Mexican version of the singing competition "The Voice."

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