Everybody's Brother (24 page)

In music and in life, my advice is to choose your battles and then fight your heart out for whatever you believe in. At least if you win that way, it will have been worth the battle.

Let it be said that despite being written off many times by people who underestimated me to be a loser, I have time and time again reacted instead like the winner I am. I have always reacted by consistently standing up for myself—especially when no one else would. Life is many things, but too often for too many of us underdogs, life can be a street
fight. Fortunately, I was born a street fighter, and most of the times I have won my battles or, at the very least, I lived to fight another day.

Recently, Goodie Mob and I recorded a song called “Fight to Win,” which we performed on
The Voice
in April 2012. We took the stage wearing gold uniforms like superheroes, beautiful battle-scarred survivors bathed in light and glory, walking through smoke and ruins. While the audience roared and Adam, Blake, and Christina rocked in their seats, I swept my arm out to silently present my crew, blending my old world with my new one, coming full circle. T-Mo started rapping:

Fight to win, stand up straight

No debate, pushed by hate, concentrate

Penetrate, generate, motivate

Live by faith, keep believing,

I know the reason,

It’s the season, now’s the time

Keep on dreaming, keep on leading

And keep on fighting

In a way, that song is the story of my entire life. Fighting—whether it’s with our fists or with our wits—is what we underdogs have always had to do in order to survive. We fight the good fight even when the odds are stacked against us. We fight for our lives. We fight to get friendship. We fight for love. And if we’re really lucky, we fight to win and actually do triumph in the end. To some
I may look like a loser or a freak, but in my heart, I am a world-champion prizefighter, and until the day I die, I will always keep my eyes on the prize.

The Season Three finale of
The Voice
was a little poignant for me, because I had decided to take a temporary break from the next season to in order to focus on my own music career for a while. And there was somebody I met during that last episode who moved me deeply. A good friend of mine was at a game at the high school football stadium in Avondale, Georgia, when he saw a kid in the stands who looked just like me. Actually he was like a mini-me, because Jordan Jackson is an achondroplastic dwarf, otherwise known as a little person, and even though he’s in ninth grade, he’s about the size of a five-year-old child. Hank took a picture of Jordan and sent it to me, and I couldn’t believe the resemblance. When we saw some YouTube clips of him dancing, I decided to fly him out and work him into the season finale.

We met in my dressing room at
The Voice
and I could tell right away that this kid was special. He was witty and poised, and so naturally talented. “Whassup, my man!” I said. “Come on and sit with me and tell me how you learned to dance.”

“Videos!” he said.

Jordan learned everything by watching movies like
Step Up
and
You Got Served
and imitating all the moves
until he had them down perfect. It reminded me so much of myself as a kid, imitating those classic singers until I sounded just like them, none of it with any formal training. There was something else in Jordan that I could relate to, and that was always being looked at sideways by people because you’re different. I wanted him to know that people found me peculiar too, and when I was such a small kid growing up and dressing in old-man’s clothes, people sometimes thought I was a dwarf. I could relate to the feeling of isolation that comes with being different. But I don’t have to spell it out for Jordan. He could just see by my example how it all can turn out—if you’re true to yourself. Under that beautiful smile he may have some of that anger I felt, because he might not know how to make his difference work for him, what it means for his life. It takes time to figure that out, but he will.

Jordan was such a huge hit dancing to “Play that Funky Music” with me and Nicholas David on
The Voice
that I hired him to be part of the show I was putting together in Las Vegas. Now he’s a professional and can see a future for himself, doing what he loves to do. And if someone tells him that he looks like CeeLo, you know then that’s cool! ’Cause I ain’t bad looking… I’m just peculiar! I don’t have to tell him, I just show him.

Today I love being part of
The Voice
success story, and not just for the money. Being on the show hasn’t just been a
paycheck to me—though the paycheck is very sweet. It’s been an education too. So when I decided to take a break from Season Four, it was because I didn’t just want to talk about being a great artist—I wanted to keep pushing myself to live up to my own advice and
be
one.

I, LOBERACE

Las Vegas gave me a chance to connect again with my inner showman.

Photography by Meeno

T
he first order of business after taking a break from
The Voice
was to finish up a comeback album with Goodie Mob. As far back as 2007, when we announced the Goodie Mob reunion, Gipp and Khujo and T-Mo and I had been throwing around ideas and laying down tracks here and there with the mind to coming out with another album. One thing after another held it up, but we kept accumulating material. After
The Lady Killer
and
The Voice
put me back on top as a solo artist, it was time to get serious. I wanted to show that we truly were Still Standing, like my brother Khujo on his bionic limb, rising from the ashes. A lot of us don’t survive long, where we’re coming from. But we’ve made it this far, and it’s time for Goodie Mob to be back on top again. We wanted to make a record to instill some imagination back into the music business. And for us to remind the world of what hip-hop is all about.

I don’t have to rap for a living, but hip-hop and rap music is my culture. When we do Goodie Mob, we don’t just rap about random thoughts. It’s got to be real, and be purposed. Anything I’ve ever done is about civil and social service. It’s all about people. You have to understand, I’ve committed my career to outshine the dark that I had done. I’m forever in my community’s debt that way.

“Fight to Win” was first record out of the chute, followed in May 2012 by an intensely personal song called “Is That You God?” It perfectly sums up our situation, our new knowledge of acceptance that comes from suffering and struggling for so long. It was a sort of manifesto about what really matters in this world. We show brotherhood, family, forgiveness, and obedience—because I’m always obedient to what my art tells me to do.

I don’t want to get too spiritual on you, but I’ve said before that if you could envision what music looked like, that would be God. Sometimes singing that song with my brothers, as with so many gospel songs and spirituals from my childhood, I can also understand what God sounds like here on Earth.

But since I have always looked at life as a combo platter of choices between Good and Evil, it is also perfectly in character for me to set up shop in a place known as Sin City.

One way of pushing myself as an artist recently has been living out one of my biggest dreams as a performer by putting together
CeeLo Green Is Loberace
—my very own splashy yet soulful Las Vegas residency at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino. My whole life, I have loved the idea not just of performing but of putting on a real, big theatrical show that captures my spirit in a way that I can’t completely do at every concert. At most shows, you work the room. In a residency, you create the room
to suit your personality, and Lord knows I have a big personality. Yes, I love to sing for people, but I also love the concept of shocking audiences with a bold rush of spectacle, sight, sound, color, creativity, and charisma. Doing all that within the economics of the entertainment business today is not too easy, but that’s the moon I choose to shoot for, and I’m going to do that any chance that I get.

I created
Loberace
to be a musical journey, from the roots of soul to psychedelic funk, hip-hop, and beyond, with my eclectic tastes splashed all over the set and interpreted by a bevy of very sexy dancing girls. Hey, this is Las Vegas, baby—what would a show be without a little titillation? I love to surround myself with the things that I love, so Goody Mob appeared every night, all of us dressed in gold and white robes like members of the world’s funkiest choir. Boy George, one of my earliest heroes, was also part of my act, doing his gender-bending androgynous thing to perfection. I also showcased V, a slinky, sinuous singer from South Central with a voice that can knock you off your feet. I was so impressed with her that I took her on in a management deal. And it’s not just because she knows that bald is beautiful. And, as promised, we brought out Jordan Jackson and his mom—and hired a tutor to keep him up with his lessons. He danced every night in a top hat and tails—another showman in the making.

CeeLo Is Loberace
is not only my tribute to great historic showman Liberace—whose piano I used with the Muppets on the Grammys—but also to the great showmen who I grew up loving and still love to this day. I learned
by watching the greats, like Prince and Sir Elton John, and I hope people could see their influences in my act.