Everybody's Brother

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by CeeLo Green


  Some days in your life fade away instantly. Other days are never-ending, and stay with you forever. I remember Goodie Mob had just gotten done doing an outdoor concert at Clark Atlanta University. This particular night really sticks out in everyone’s mind. We were on a very high stage, and at one point in the show I drank from a water bottle, shook it up a little, then sprayed it on the crowd a little and threw the bottle out there in the crowd for fun. Someone in the crowd threw the bottle back hard, and it hit T-Mo right in the face. Now, that might not make me flinch these days. But back then, I was a young man, someone you should never push because I was always close to the edge. I had a total hair-trigger temper—real reactionary in that way.

  So I just took off and dived into the crowd, and the audience parted like the Red Sea as I fell to Earth. My chest hit the ground and there was a large and loud SPLAT! like in a cartoon. I slid because it was raining and muddy that night—which may also explain why the crowd wasn’t really in the mood to be sprayed with water. For my foolishness, I ended up cracking my shoulder—and it’s still cracked. By the time I somehow got back up on my feet, Khujo had jumped off the stage and was miraculously standing right there beside me trying to help. I still don’t know how Khujo got to me that quickly. That’s why I love him still. We may have fought each other in Goodie Mob sometimes, but we also fought for each other when the need arose—like that night, when the need fell hard.

  I was able to put my arms around Khujo, and he had to walk me off because I had knocked the air out of myself. I guess I had a lot of hot air, even then. After the show, I went to a friend’s house and had a few beers for the pain. Then I went home to my grandmother’s place and crashed in the den.

  On so many occasions in my life, when the phone has rung late at night, it’s been because someone has passed or some other terrible news. I’m a light sleeper, and as a result, when that phone rings late, I always jump. I think that anxiety also comes from having to feel like the protector from a young age because even then—by the process of elimination—I was the man of the house, or as close as we had. Growing up, every night I’d walk around the house in my paranoia and check the windows and the door because there wasn’t a dad around to do it—and sometimes not a mom either.

  The call came that night and my grandmother rushed to tell me “Okay, Lo, let’s get up and go to the hospital. They say Sheila is on life support.” I remember me not necessarily knowing exactly what that meant, so my grandmother said my mother had already stopped breathing on her own. Ten minutes later, just as we were getting ready to leave, they called again from the hospital and said that she had passed. And I just remember my grandmother crying “Why did you all let her die like that?” And I don’t know why she said that—maybe it was just the first words she could get out of her mouth.

  I was the only man there, and I couldn’t express any hurt at the moment. I had to wake my sister up and deliver the terrible news. It was so hurtful. We all had such deep, sad, but mixed feelings. You have to understand, by this time, my mother had been suffering so much and was so argumentative with everybody that it was a kind of relief when she finally passed. I think that was her way of trying to make sure we all missed her a little less—which was exactly the sort of thing she would do.

  I had to try to be strong. We all drove out to Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta where she had been staying. They told us a pulmonary embolism had finally killed her. I stood for a while by her hospital bed and touched her hand. She was so cold. The life source had left her body. I felt compelled to fall into prayer, and we all stood around her body and prayed.

  With her death, I couldn’t deny her anymore. She became a part of me in a very profound and spiritual way. I truly believe my mother bestowed me with her life’s work and with her strength and her drive. It was like passing the torch. In the end, that’s my true inheritance, and to me, it’s priceless.

  At least in my head, I decided her suffering was not in vain. On some level I cannot fully explain, I began to feel that she sacrificed her life for me, as if there were some strange transfer of her energy and spirit and wishes from her to me. And in my heart of hearts, I truly believe that my mother knew that she somehow saved my soul with her life. At least, that’s how I feel about it. So everything that I have ever done, she’s done too. Because my mother is always in my head and in my heart, I’ve written quite a few songs for her, including “She Knows” on the second Gnarls Barkley album with the lyrics, “Gonna be just like you, I’m giving my life, too.”

  Some moments are private, but here’s what can I say: I spoke at my mother’s wake and I sang gospel at her funeral. I just stood up unannounced and unscheduled, and did it completely by the spirit because no matter what, I am my parents’ child. Thinking back, I can’t believe I did that or got through it. But like I said, with all the pain, there was joy too. At last my mother was free.

  Big Gipp: The passing of CeeLo’s mother graduated him to being a man. He recognized that there are consequences to the things that we do in life. Overnight, he had to take things more seriously, and he did. When we got word that his mom had passed, I remember looking at Lo and he didn’t cry. He was so strong that it was almost like his mom was there with him, giving him support. As far as dealing with death, I had the sense that CeeLo was at peace with it at the time. He was at peace with knowing that she didn’t have to hurt anymore. And he didn’t have to worry about her suffering anymore. So in a way, her being free of suffering freed him up to grow up, take charge, and work like a beast to make it.

  CeeLo had started out relatively happy to be along for the Goodie Mob ride, but almost instantly, it became clear that he’s a man who wants to do the driving whenever he can. Remember, Goodie Mob had started as Khujo’s group, but CeeLo always had big and crazy ideas and would not be shy about expressing them. He was pushing us to go farther out—and places beyond anything rap groups did. I remember CeeLo saying things like “Okay, Gipp, we’re all going to wear jumpsuits with gas masks!” CeeLo loved the wildness of rock and roll fashion. Then and now, CeeLo is—first and foremost—a true artist who loves to push boundaries and buttons whenever he possibly can.

  When we first started going into the studio to put Goodie Mob songs down, Organized Noize would put a song up and one of us would just listen to it and jump on it. Not CeeLo. He would listen to it, and then he’d rearrange it and tell us all what to do. He was always the one to ask the question, and then he was also the one to give the answer. I never got involved in that, but CeeLo always took it upon himself to make whatever he was doing better. He put songs in a kind of storybook lineup so that they added up to say something, to tell a story, to make the music a journey. That’s what he does, and he does it better than anyone else I’ve ever seen. And he did it with soul and style. It was like he was arranging a meal, and it all had to work together and it all had to taste good. He was busy making something out of nothing, and I think that’s the story of CeeLo’s life. The story of his life is taking something that nobody may even see the beauty of, seeing what it can really do, and being the one who’s always able to take it and shine it up and make it seem like a brand-new toy.

  Goodie Mob went out on our first tour opening up for the Roots and the Fugees, and that’s when my relationship with Lauryn Hill began. I felt a powerful connection with her immediately. We’re both Geminis, the same age. Lauryn’s birthday was the same as Dré’s, and mine was two days later. She’s very nurturing, comes across like family. So we were just like brother and sister, although I confess that I once thought she could have been my soul mate. She saw something in me that I may not have recognized for myself. This was right before I met my future wife, Christine, and for a moment, I thought Lauryn was going to be my queen, the love of my life. True confession: I loved Lauryn Hill. I wanted to marry her, and I thought she was made just for me. That didn’t happen, but we still got to have a great friendship that ended up making a big difference in my life.

  When we signed
with LaFace Records, they gave us a check for $20,000—$5,000 each. Even after our first album was out, Goodie Mob’s financial reality didn’t change that much. But I was cool with that, I didn’t even want massive success all that much. The truth is that being famous was never my dream. I wanted something constructive to do with my life, have a real purpose in the world. I was more preoccupied with being an activist than with being some kind of superstar.

  So I talked. A lot. Touring for our first album, I would do fifteen minutes of dialogue onstage. I was preaching, basically because to me it really was the family business. I was also trying my best to explain the music. I didn’t think the Soul Food album was all that enjoyable, honestly. I thought it was listenable and high quality, but it sure wasn’t one of those “put your hands in the air like you don’t care” party albums. At this time we were deadly serious about the music because we were soldiering, trying to solidify the South as someplace worthy of respect in hip-hop. So we went out on the front lines to make sure that we were respected—that we were counted. That’s all it was about for me in those days. We had a mission and a purpose. Right there, right then, we wanted to forever abolish the stereotypes about Southern rap—that it was less meaningful and political and relevant than the music coming from New York or Los Angeles.

  I think it’s pretty shameful that some of the Southern artists who followed us have reinstated certain old stereotypes. But back then we were four Southern guys with a mission, and we were carrying a whole lot on our backs, and in a way it weighed us down at the time.

  L.A. Reid from LaFace Records thought we were taking ourselves too seriously. One time when we were back from the road he had us over to his house. “You’re young guys!” he said. “Why so serious all the time? Ain’t you getting no pussy?”

  Our second Goodie Mob album called Still Standing was an easier process for me. The four of us rented a cabin in the Georgia woods and mapped out the concepts. Then I got my tonsils taken out and I was in bed for two weeks. It gave me some time at home and time to actually sit with my notebooks and write my rhymes and think my thoughts. There wasn’t a lot of freestyling or small talk for me. For me it was about a lot of big ideas—and just the facts, ma’am. Personally, I liked our second album even more than the first. I still love the song “They Don’t Dance No Mo’ ” and the crazy video we made of it which featured me as a dancing baby with moves like Michael Jackson. The wild sense of humor that I display now, I was displaying back at times then too, but people didn’t really know me yet so they didn’t always get the joke at all. Around my friends and family, I’ve always been a pretty funny guy, but definitely back in the Goodie Mob days, the perception around us was so serious because we were pushing some deadly serious ideas. But on my own, I have always loved making people laugh. I found that it felt a lot better than making people scared—which is something I also knew all about.

  There were some dark themes in that second album too, because it was a dark time. Tupac and Biggie Smalls had both been killed, and the East Coast–West Coast beefs were ripping the Hip-Hop Nation apart. We’d known both Biggie and Tupac, so it was personal. In fact, we had just been out on the West Coast, talking about doing some recording with ’Pac.

  Big Gipp: Our path in Goodie Mob was not like anyone else’s. You could see our ending in our beginning. And you could see our beginning in our end. On one level, we had the perfect start—our first album, Soul Food, went gold and had three songs that made the Top 10 on the rap charts—“Cell Therapy” went to number 1 on the rap singles, then “Soul Food” went to number 7, and finally “Dirty South” went to number 8, with all three songs making the Billboard Hot 100 Pop chart too. Our first tour was amazing too and became iconic because it featured us along with two other great groups who were coming on strong then: the Fugees and the Roots. That’s a whole lot of talent right there, and everybody got along great. We were all one big, happy, freaky hip-hop family all out to take over the world with music and soul.

  It meant even more to us because we didn’t sell out with some dance party, we came out of the box saying something that was tough and no-nonsense. We were not just fighting to make our name, we were fighting for the prominence and the respect of Southern hip-hop. And we were winning. In Goodie Mob, we did not view ourselves as some “act.” We viewed ourselves as musical messengers with a word to spread. And we were proud of being monthly guests on a BET show called Teen Summit then and doing our small part to educate black kids about their history a little. But the first time I totally realized that CeeLo has a gift way beyond just music was when we met with Minister Louis Farrakhan. Now that was a day to remember, when CeeLo ended up doing some ministering of his own.

  Around this time Minister Farrakhan from the Nation of Islam called together the rap community for a big conference in Chicago to create some kind of coalition, a sort of peace treaty to try to unify the hip-hop world and stop the war that was brewing and likely would have continued. That day we were going around the table and everyone was discussing this, that, and the other thing. And when the microphone came in front of me, I preached. That’s the only way that I can put it. And if you’ve ever been to a black church, you know what I mean. Maybe it was genetic, considering my heritage. In any case, something kicked in and I found myself opening my big mouth and giving my own hip-hop sermon about the need to stop the madness and start spreading a better world. I was inspired that day. I started talking about what was going on and about what we needed to do about it, and I could see all these faces listening intently, and the older men in the room in their suits were looking impressed, like “Young man, wow.”

  I so wanted to be part of a moment and a movement that was positive and had meaning. Like a lot of reformed criminals, I might have made an excellent priest, as long as there was no vow of celibacy. That day I wanted to join the Nation of Islam and just be a soldier in a struggle that was worth fighting for. I guess this may sound a little morbid, but I always dreamed of an honorable death more than I wanted infamy. I wanted—and want—my life to mean something. It’s got to mean something.

  I remember thinking perhaps this was the purpose on Earth my mother and so many others at church had spoken about. Over the years, people who met me on the street would tell me, “You have the mark of a minister on you. You are going to preach someday.” Even people from other churches would tell my mother that. And in a way, it made sense. After all, I’d always worn suits, tried to carry myself like an older man, even carrying my father’s pipe. Maybe I was supposed to take my rightful place as a preacher and a soldier for God. It was a temptation—and a good one in my mind—but it wasn’t quite my path, as much as I genuinely respect it. After that day, I realized that I would have to preach a different gospel in the end—my own Crazy Gospel According to CeeLo Green. But before I would find my own funky flock and write my own Good Book, I would have to journey in the wilderness for a little bit longer.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Self-Civilized Man Meets His Match and Our Mob Breaks Apart

  This is out of respect to women period

  I’m quite single

  And occasionally I mingle

  But aside from all the rest

  She sparks my interest

  No ma’m I don’t know you,

  Just offerin’ the common respect I feel I owe you…

  You’re my beginnin’, my end

  You’re my sista lover and friend

  God is your light from within

  It shines through your beautiful skin.

  —Goodie Mob, “Beautiful Skin”

  FAMILY MAN

  Here I am with my beautiful wife, Christine, the daughters we raised together, Kalah and Sierra, and our son, Kingston.

  I will always thank God for my beautiful family.

  The song “Beautiful Skin” was more than my salute to the pleasures of the flesh—female flesh, that is. It’s a love letter to women everywhere. That was a song I did one day in the studio when no one fr
om the Mob was around. I had the idea and a friend of ours named Chris Jewell had a track, and the melody to that song came when we were beat boxing. Initially, that song was almost like a Bobby McFerrin kind thing—my strange take on “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” We playing around in the studio doing something like that, and I remember that’s where the melody came from. Lyrically, “Beautiful Skin” became my salute to sisters everywhere. The fact is that even before I met my match, I’ve just always appreciated women, all women, and especially our women. But woman in general are so beautiful to me. They most certainly are a wonderland, enchanting and very interesting. To me a woman is a muse and amusing. You can get understanding from a woman, but I don’t know if you could completely understand a woman. They are mysterious, and who doesn’t love a little mystery in their life? Or a whole lot of mystery if you can get away with it? Hell, I am a man of mystery. That’s still the case with me, from then to “The Lady Killer” and beyond.

  I loved Christine Johnson from the very first moment that I met her. I remember spotting Christine at a birthday party for Gipp around the time of Still Standing. She was a vision of womanhood, towering above the competition. She had a singular kind of mutant beauty—in my mind at least, she was the much more gorgeous Queen to my highly unusual but still rather regal King. Christine is taller than me, and back then she looked even taller because she wore her beautiful hair in stacks, with these amazing blond dreadlocks—something that none of us had ever seen on any sister before. As a result, she appeared to be approximately nine feet tall of something good indeed. Like they say, big things sometimes come in tall packages. So I suppose you could say that I have always looked up to Christine—both literally and figuratively. Then there was the fact that Christine had a gorgeous face and beautiful skin. And as soon as she began to talk, I knew right away that I had met my match. As even a kid should know, when you play with matches, sparks will fly.

 

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