Behind his chart-topping bravado and imposing stature, Cee Lo Green admits he thrives on imperfection. “I’m flawed,” he tells Clash.
Cee Lo welcomes Clash into the Central London studio where our interview is taking place holding a miniature electric guitar. The proportions make Green seem positively gigantic. Fear begins to take hold – images of the tattooed ‘Fuck You’ author throwing similar expletives our way flashes through the imagination, but as soon as he opens his mouth and ushers us in with the gentlest of voices, we’re immediately put at ease. Cee Lo is clearly not all that he seems.
Released last month, Green’s third solo album ‘The Lady Killer’ spawned the aforementioned Number One single – censored on radio to ‘Forget You – and consolidated his reputation as a soul-pop tour de force in his own right. Not that the plaudits cascading his way are affecting him.
“Consumers do not create,” he says. “So the opinions are of something that I’ve done and not something that I’m doing, so they do not dictate what I attempt to do or what I feel like I should do or I must do or that I feel needs to be done. No, popular opinion is just secondary to the soul and the self and following your heart.”
Trusting his muse is something that Green has done all his life. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, the self-confessed teenage terror stepped off a wayward path when he formed hip-hop group Goodie Mob, from the Atlanta collective that also produced Outkast. His mother had just died, and music was the one thing that saved him from a life off the rails. “I know it sounds like a grand statement, but it’s just about having a focus, having a love, so it’s like a labour of love,” he says. Leaving Goodie Mob in 1999, Green pursued a solo career with two albums before a collaboration with uber producer Danger Mouse catapulted him to international acclaim. They worked under the name Gnarls Barkley, and their hit ‘Crazy’ became the first Number One from download sales. That platform paved the way for ‘The Lady Killer’, which demonstrates perfectly the diverse palette from which Green draws from.
“They’re all separate but associated,” Cee Lo says of his sundry projects and albums. “They’re all the same person, all the same personality, but different time periods. This is where I am at the time.”
“It’s a continuous evolution in the same direction,” he adds, “not changing directions or destinations. I’m still going there.”
Where “there” might be is yet to be determined, but the journey is proving to be just as enjoyable as the destination. Cee Lo’s earliest influences were not groups from the emerging hip-hop scene in the US, but the glamorous pop blasting from across the Atlantic. Culture Club, Duran Duran, ABC and Madness were all staples in young Thomas DeCarlo Callaway’s record collection, and it’s from them, more than anyone else, that his inherent humour, vivacity and theatricality has been galvanized.
“You can’t help but hear that [fun] inside of it,” Cee Lo smiles. “But when it’s posing to be too serious, I can’t relate to life being that perfect. I can’t relate to things without being scratched or blemished or being unscathed. I’m flawed.”
That may be the case, but ‘The Lady Killer’ is anything but. Smart soul music collides with modern pop to create a deranged Motown sound for the 21st century, all anchored by the intense barrelhouse vocals of Cee Lo. His voice can exude euphoria as much as it can invoke pain, as he sings of rejection, hurt and loss. “There’s an endearing quality about seeing somebody who loves music express it outwardly,” Green admits, and Clash couldn’t agree more.
The ever-evolving Cee Lo isn’t one to rest on his laurels though – next up he’ll be entering the studio with Goodie Mob for a new album, then resuming work with Danger Mouse for Gnarls Barkley’s next outing. Going by intuition, it appears, is treating him well.
“I believe that fate rewards faith, so you have to start there,” Green concludes. “You have to be willing to take the jump. It has so much irony to it – even if you die trying you can still inspire someone to be as adventurous as yourself. So to give your life to anything, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
Words by Simon Harper
Photography by Emilie Fjola Sandy
