DX: Have you guys gone over [plans for the new album] like, “Hey, we’re doing the Soul Food/Still Standing tradition, not World Party 2?” ‘Cause that Lumberjacks album [that T-Mo and Khujo released in 2005] was kinda like was a reversion back to some World Party stuff.
Cee-Lo: Man, I listened to that album one time. I listened to that One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show one time. And it’s like, they’ll tell you…T has described himself a rapper, as an emcee, and his whole thing initially coming to the game was just rappin’, about this and that. It doesn’t really have anything to do with a mission or a cause. But my being involved [in the group led to] what you heard [on those first two Goodie Mob albums]. And this is not to insult anybody, ‘cause I think it’s the truth, but what you heard [was] my influence shining [through].

We weren’t even a group [initially] to begin with. Khujo and T were The Lumberjacks. Gipp was a solo artist who had just gotten out of a group called the East Point Chain Gang, which featured him, Chief, Cool Breeze, and a cat named O.Z. And I was a solo artist. So actually OutKast was in the Goodie Mob, Organized Noize was in the Goodie Mob, so to speak, and therefore we had titled [the collective] Dungeon Family. The Dungeon was always the name of the studio [we worked out of in Rico Wade’s basement]. [And so] Goodie Mob was more or less supposed to be a compilation [of different artists].

“Free,” the intro [to Soul Food] was actually a whole [solo] song [initially] that was chopped down to the intro. Because as long as I could remember I wanted to sing. Khujo and T were going through litigation with their former management about the namesake Lumberjacks and things of that nature, so they couldn’t even use their solo songs on the album. And then “Dirty South” was Gipp’s solo song on the album, but he chose to put [his former group member] Cool Breeze on there. And I’m glad he did. The same thing with “Black Ice” [from Still Standing], that was a solo song from Gipp [originally]. [Going back], if you listen to “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik” [when you hear Dre say], “Big Gipp, Goodie Mob, P.A., Outkast southernplayalistic.” So we wasn’t even formed as Goodie Mob at that time.

So a lot of that mission and the politics and the social content [of the group], that’s just my thing. But as it was introduced [to the rest of the group] everybody found that place in themselves that had it in common. That ended up being our common ground. And then it became something very natural. And it was personified by the time we got to Still Standing, which is our best album in my opinion. Soul Food is our debut album, so therefore you can’t ever duplicate that. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. But it wasn’t our best album to me. Still Standing is the one.

DX: Well I hope that you guys end up back on that page ‘cause the good are still unfortunately dying mostly over bullshit.
Cee-Lo: Yeah, definitely. And we fought very hard to abolish those stereotypes of southern music, [but] as soon as we were taken out of the way [that] was just all reinstated. I try so hard not to judge it…but you have to understand, when we all come back together as Goodie Mob it’s [gonna be the same] way the Panthers had to come back in to clean up their communities. So we’re probably not gonna make some good friends with the trappers and shit. And I’m not trying to knock nobody’s hustle but there has to be a balance. There’s no us anymore, no one else brave enough to pick up that torch and carry it even further. And [southern Hip Hop] is suffering because of it. But it’s suffering on such a scale that they even recognize it themselves. You may not even have to call their names out. I may not even have to do it because they do realize what a travesty it all is.

DX: Yeah, I don’t know where that chain got broken.
Cee-Lo: Everybody’s trying to feed their families, so there are certain things you have to do to play it safe. But what I love about Goodie Mob was that we weren’t doing it for any money at all. That’s how genuine it was. It was activism more than it was entertainment. I never felt like I was tap dancing for anybody. I’m anti-establishment in that way.

I am well aware of the conscious and intentional genocide my people are subjected to. And I’m also conscious [of the fact that] the definition of nigger is “settler” in the simplest terms, and not want anymore for yourself. And [that] just appauls me. I can’t allow that to be. I have children. These grown-ass men need to behave as such. I wanna make it fashionable for us to be fathers, [to have] families and be focused. And that be final but still fly. I’m old enough to be an elder, but I’m still young enough to be the youth. Continued on page 4 »