Everybody's Brother (23 page)

When I asked him why he wanted me to be a part of
The Voice
, it was not my own remarkable survival instincts that made him interested in meeting me but rather my singular flair as a flamboyant showman. Those are Mark’s words—not mine. He told me that he saw me perform with Gnarls Barkley and was immediately impressed, so much
so that when he heard that I was appearing as a musical guest on
Saturday Night Live
, Mark said he actually went to the show. He wanted to see what I was like not only performing musically on the show, but also working my way into a few skits. Mark even asked
Saturday Night Live
’s producer Lorne Michaels what he thought of my skills, and thankfully Lorne gave me rave reviews.

I suppose that one great showman can recognize another. I liked Mark’s spirit right away. It does not hurt that Mark—who is dangerously charming and pretty easy to talk to for a major TV tycoon—has definitely led his own decidedly colorful life. This is not a prince who was born into the royal family—he was the only child of two factory workers in England, a former paratrooper who jumped the pond and scratched out a living in Los Angeles before becoming a media power player.

The show had started in 2010 in the Netherlands as
The Voice of Holland created by John de Mol
, but it was too good a TV format to stay a Dutch TV treat forever, so Mark Burnett brought his own voice and vision to making the show into an American TV sensation. When Mark showed me the original Dutch show, I could immediately see that it could be very, very big on this side of the Atlantic.

I thought being on
The Voice
was a fascinating offer—but one that still scared me because in my mind, great artists are supposed to be a little mysterious and somewhat elusive. For instance, I sure couldn’t imagine Prince being a regular on any TV show—so putting my face and my persona on TV constantly seemed a little uncomfortable.
TV is a large, enormous force compared to making music. The way people approach you and think that they know you is different in television because they experience you coming into their living room. I think that’s part of the reason people feel celebrities should not have any zone of privacy today—because we go into your homes, you feel you have the right to get into my personal business too. That’s just the price of fame for celebrities today. And for better and for worse, I have become a celebrity with all that entails these days.

I am just a mutant man and I know it. Yet I thought what I could do creatively on a show like
The Voice
was worth doing because it celebrates people—all kinds of people who are stars in their own night skies. I never got involved in this industry to revel in my own celebrity. I have been an outcast and alienated for far too long to do that. I would rather use all the attention to try to find some common ground. My feeling is that if you and I talked to one another for long enough, we would realize that we are both unique, both peculiar, both downright weird, and that eventually I would discover that you are likely just as crazy as me. For me, that realization takes the hurt off of being crazy.

Eventually, despite any skepticism or concerns about overexposure, I was sold on doing the show. My managers were excited about it too, but back then, some very powerful people on the record company side told us that this was not good idea at all.

Big Gipp:
One of the most powerful men in the business, Lyor Cohen—who was the North American Chairman and CEO of Recorded Music for Warner Music Group back then—called a special meeting just to basically say “Lo, don’t do it!” Lyor is a man who people usually listen to. But true to form, CeeLo was like “Oh,
don’t
do it?” And immediately Lo decided he was doing it anyway. And of course, then
The Voice
went right through the roof.

The show worked because it was real, and CeeLo worked on
The Voice
because he’s real too. He’s seen the world and made history without getting a high school education. Despite coming from nothing, Lo’s performed for the royals in England and hung with the President of the United States. He’s a kid who was a street thug who now gets his ass kissed by network executives. You want to know why
The Voice
happened? For the same reason most of the good things in CeeLo’s career have happened. It’s not because he listened to the smartest guys in the room. It’s not because he listened to the “conventional wisdom”—because he is way too unconventional for that shit. CeeLo won big because he went with his gut and he was right again. Lo turned out to be the perfect person for
The Voice
because he’s a great singer and a student of great artists. He felt more confident because
he was in business with a TV producer who comes from the grind—a self-made man like Mark Burnett. Diversity comes in all colors and races, and sometimes it even comes with a British accent.

Everybody jelled into a real family pretty quickly because right away it became clear that this show was going to be around for a while. I think what CeeLo has gotten out of it is a kind of discipline—he’s become a better judge of vocal character, a better leader, and a better motivator of others. And to keep things real, it’s also made Lo a shitload of money, and that’s not a bad thing either. It’s been a trip to watch Lo coach people because he’s always done that and been a brainiac when it comes to knowing music history and putting that knowledge to use. If I was on
The Voice
, I’d want Lo to be my coach because that man does some real
sensei
-type shit. Lo picks songs on some deeper level. He knows how to put people in their element—and then he knows how to take them out of their element, because if they can work outside of their comfort zone, then they have a fighting chance to make their way in this business.

Fortunately, smarter voices prevailed. Like one of my managers, Larry Mestel. I met Larry back when he was on the label side and I recognized how smart he is. Now
he’s one of the guys who are trying to forge a new music business that really works. The old model was just about selling records, but today, the music business is less about hard product and more about branding yourself and working with other people to market your music and all that you do.

That’s something I hope all these kids on all the talent shows today realize. A record deal was once the end-all, be-all mission, the dream destination. That was never completely true because the music business has always had a high failure rate. We forget that because just like war history is made by the victor, music history tends to get made by the biggest success stories.

When I finally decided to do the show, which first aired in April 2011, I thought of
The Voice
as being what I call “a token of tangibility”—a sort of bridge of understanding for anyone who perceived me as being a little elusive, ambiguous, and enigmatic. Personally, I consider all three of those words to be compliments, but I felt as though the time had come for me to step forward toward the general public and let them get a better sense of who I am. This way they will know that I’m not just some crazy-looking guy telling them all “Fuck You.”

One of the biggest selling points for me was that the casting of the show was spectacular, with four people who all fit very different molds. This is one place where we succeeded where so many other talent shows failed. Mark Burnett knew that the people turning in those chairs on
The Voice
all should bring different flavors to our TV feast.

Blake Shelton is a good-looking good old country boy with a big heart of gold who everyone could relate to—including me as a country boy of a different shade. Blake and I hit it off right away.

Adam Levine is a rock and roll heartthrob with a lot of heart. When I was cutting
The Lady Killer
album, Adam’s great band Maroon 5 was in the next studio, and we’d pass each other in the halls at all hours. We’ve become good buddies—which was great for me because Los Angeles, where we shoot
The Voice
, is his hometown and he’s got it wired. Adam is a local kid made good who grew up with some privilege, but also with a lot of soul that comes across in those bedroom eyes the sexy ladies like to look into so much.

What can you say about Christina Aguilera? She is a true global superstar whose talent has been crystal clear since she was a kid and has only increased since she has lived a little and become the awesome woman she is today. When you’re on a show called
The Voice
, it surely doesn’t hurt to have one of the greatest voices in the world sitting beside you as a coach. Recently I recorded the famously sexy duet “Baby It’s Cold Outside” with Christina for my
CeeLo’s Magic Moment
Christmas album, and let me tell you firsthand, that lady is one hot duet partner and a formidable presence who can be sweet when she wants to be and a “Fighter” when she needs to be. I want to thank Christina for that sultry little Christmas gift to me.

Together, the four of us have made a pretty winning team. Despite having made a splash on a few award shows,
I’d had most of my experience in TV on the other side of the screen. Yet even I could tell that Mark knew how to build a television show to last—in part because he is so damn good at what he does and in part because that’s where the money is in TV. So Mark surrounded us with an altogether excellent team, including our host Carson Daly—a true music guy who helps keep our show together when the coaches get out of control—which is more often than you might want to imagine. We’ve become like a little family on
The Voice
, and we don’t just sit down together in the chairs. Off camera, there are card games outside the trailers, and some of us are practical jokers—as my homeboy Usher, a Season Four rookie, recently learned. You never know what might happen next.

Each of us coaches came from very different backgrounds, and all of us made pretty good names for ourselves, but I give you my word that at one time or another, all of us felt like underdogs, undervalued and written off. Somebody along the way told us that we could not do what we wanted to do. You don’t go far in show business without someone telling you “No, you can’t.” And so yes, we did.

I have no regrets whatsoever about becoming a TV fixture in such a positive, musical, and fun way. I’ve loved the chance to work with so many talented young artists, from Nakia and Vicci Martinez back in Season One right through to Nicholas David and Trevin Hunte in Season Three. I have wonderful stories about each of my team members, but I don’t want to leave some of them out by singling out any of them. In my mind, they are all stars.

I have to say that I’m always rooting for the underdog on
The Voice
, because I’ve always felt like an underdog myself. I guess you could say I’ve got a working-class-hero kind of quality to what I do. I love people whether they’re as normal or abnormal as me, even if they consider me strange or different. Wait a minute! That’s where the whole question in “Crazy” came from—hey, if you think
I’m
crazy, I think
you’re
crazy!

However much of an oddball artist I am, I wanted the world to know that I am also a professional, and I take pride in being a professional. The fact that I get to do what I do for a living is not luck. I know what I am doing. My integrity is intact. The best lesson that I can teach the young artists who come on my teams is if you’re truly talented and really fortunate, you can make a career out of being yourself artistically for the rest of your life. That’s the dream. That’s the ultimate achievement. So I encourage artists on the way up to go for gold. But in order to do that, you have to ask yourself a very big question: Who are you? If you want the whole world to know who you are, you better answer that question for yourself first.

If I ever really let others define me, I’d probably be locked up in a Georgia prison right now. Throughout my life I have never been comfortable with the idea of any other man or woman determining my fate. That is why I have always listened first and foremost to one voice—and that’s the one that comes from deep within me.

Even with the mostly young artists I have worked with on
The Voice
, I always try to encourage them to listen not
just to me but to their own hearts and souls. Do you think a timeless artist like Prince asked for a lot of advice on what kind of music to make? I surely don’t think so. As I see it, Prince started a revolution because he made the music that he heard inside his own head and in his own heart. When I listen to a classic album like
Dirty Mind
or
1999
or
Purple Rain
, I hear a young Prince making the music that he had to make because he was expressing something burning deep inside himself. For my money, that’s what music should be before it ever becomes a business—music should be a powerful form of personal expression.

Today, there are far too many artists—and that is using the term “artist” way too loosely—who take the opposite approach. They listen to every voice telling them what to do and what will sell. These kinds of wannabe artists try to play by the rules and they play it safe. They think that they can fake it and still make it. And maybe they can for a minute or even for fifteen minutes. But soon after that, their pop expiration date comes due.