Everybody's Brother (12 page)

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.