Cee-Lo

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This article is about the music artist. For the dice game, see Cee-lo.
Cee-Lo
Cee-Lo at a Gnarls Barkley concert
Cee-Lo at a Gnarls Barkley concert
Background information
Birth name Thomas DeCarlo Callaway
Also known as Cee-Lo Green
Suga Baby
Eldorado Lo
Ralo Eight
Lorilla
Cee-Lo Sinatra
HenniCee-Lo
Car Belly
Lil' Buddah
Cookie Monster
Sugar Lo
Dracu-Lo
Born May 30, 1974 (1974-05-30) (age 33)
Origin Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A
Genre(s) Hip hop, funk, R&B, soul
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, rapper, producer
Instrument(s) Singing, rapping
Years active 1995–present
Label(s) Arista
Associated acts Goodie Mob, Gnarls Barkley, Jazze Pha, Dungeon Family, The Heart Attack, Kilo Ali

Cee-Lo Green is the stage name of Thomas DeCarlo Callaway (born May 30, 1974), an American hip hop, funk, soul, and R&B musician. He is a singer, rapper, songwriter, and record producer, best known as a member of Goodie Mob and more recently Gnarls Barkley, and has also recorded two critically acclaimed solo LPs. Among Cee-Lo's solo hits are the singles "Closet Freak" (2002) and "I'll Be Around" (2003), produced by and featuring Timbaland.

Contents

[edit] Background

Cee-Lo was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He started his music career in his church. He's delved artistically into drawing, dancing, DJing, and fashion throughout his life, not wanting to be narrowly defined as an artist.

[edit] Family

His daughter, Sierra, was on an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 in season 1. His son, Kingston, is featured on the intro of Cee-Lo Green... is the Soul Machine.

Sierra and Kalah are his stepdaughters; the daughter of his former wife Christina Johnson. Kingston is his only biological child.

Cee-Lo's mother was involved in a car crash leaving her quadriplegic. She died two years later sending him into a deep depression, as reflected in several songs on St. Elsewhere.[1]

[edit] Technique

While prominently billed as a rapper, Cee-Lo is also sometimes classified as either a gospel or faux-gospel singer. His latest album, the Gnarls Barkley project, featured him singing entire songs with only a few rap verses on any of the tracks, and he frequently sings hooks for other artists.

While rapping, Cee-Lo is very straightforward in his speech and can be ferocious in delivery, or soft and melodic as the song warrants. Structure is a big part of his style, and a moral or spiritual message is often present in his rhyme. Cee-Lo has also dabbled in "scat" rap flows on the song "Childz Play" featuring Ludacris and spoken word on "I Am Selling Soul".

[edit] Collaborations

He has appeared as a featured singing vocalist on songs by artists such as De La Soul, Kelis, Everlast, Common, Carlos Santana, Royce Da 5'9", Nas, Twista, OutKast, Rehab, Seeed, Black Eyed Peas, Danger Mouse & MF Doom, Musiq, Cunninlynguists, Diddy, Mad Skillz, Lil Kim, Erykah Badu and Trick Daddy, and sings background vocals on labelmates TLC's hit single "Waterfalls". He also collaborated with Trick Daddy and Lil' Kim on the smash 2005 song, Sugar (Gimme Some).

His successes as a songwriter and producer include the 2005 hit single "Don't Cha", originally recorded by Tori Alamaze, and then by The Pussycat Dolls and Busta Rhymes.

Cee-Lo recently produced a track on Kelis' fourth album, Kelis Was Here. The track is called "Lil Star" and Cee-Lo is also a featured vocalist, singing the hook. He appears as a star formation in the video for Lil Star.

Cee-Lo has also produced a track called "Take Control" for Amerie's new CD Because I Love It, where Cee-Lo sings background in the chorus, and which is the lead single of the album.

[edit] Projects

[edit] Goodie Mob

Main article: Goodie Mob

Along with Big Gipp, T-Mo, and Khujo, Cee-Lo was an original member of the Atlanta hip hop group Goodie Mob. He is the youngest of the four. When commenting about his role in the group's collective sound, he likened his influence to water:

"I provide depth in my rhymes, but not too much depth to where you can't swim. Sometimes all you know about is what you don't know. It's intriguing. Large volumes of water can be intimidating, so if you go deeper, you don't know what to expect. I have the will to go deeper, to seek knowledge. Knowledge is not coincidental, it's given to you."

Cee-Lo was featured in the following Goodie Mob albums before pursuing a solo career:

During making of the album World Party, Cee-Lo left the group to pursue a solo career under Arista and the remaining members continued to perform together under the Goodie Mob name with Koch Records. They did however collaborate in combinations in the Dungeon Family album Even in Darkness. Although the next Goodie Mob album seemed to mock Cee-Lo with its title, One Monkey Don't Stop No Show, the group expressed that it was more of a jab at Arista and the music industry as a whole.

In 2005, Cee-Lo and Big Gipp were both noted in interviews as saying the entire group is back on good terms and that they have been in the studio working on a new Goodie Mob album. No title or release date have been given for the new project. The song "Hold On" from Big Boi of OutKast's Got Purp? Vol 2 album was the first newly recorded Goodie Mob song with all four members since World Party. (Khujo later revealed to fans at an album signing for his new album "Mercury", that the song "Hold On" was originally recorded in 1995 before Soul Food was released.)

[edit] Solo career

Cee-Lo's Arista career was short-lived, as he was dropped after only two albums due to low record sales. His first album, Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections, was heavily in the vein of various other Dungeon Family releases, with southern soul/funk/jazz backings produced solely by himself and boasting appearances by fellow Dungeon Fam members Big Gipp and Backbone.

The album explored his departure from Goodie Mob and his solo growth in the song "El Dorado Sunrise (Super Chicken)", as well as socio-political issues, and showcased his singing. The album did not sell very well, but Cee-Lo achieved some airplay with the single "Closet Freak".

His second Arista album, Cee-Lo Green... is the Soul Machine brought a more branched-out sound and more deeply explored southern rap music. This is evidenced by collaborations with Ludacris, T.I., and Pharrell and production from Timbaland, The Neptunes, and Jazze Pha among others. The only other Dungeon Family member that appeared on his second release was Big Rube.

This album saw Cee-Lo delve into other styles besides traditional rap (see Technique). Timbaland proved to be Cee-Lo's single producer as their song "I'll Be Around" received mild airplay. They performed the single on an episode in the second season of Chappelle's Show. "The One" featuring Jazze Pha and T.I. was also released as a single.

On the heels of the success of Gnarls Barkley, Arista has decided to release a 19-track "Greatest Hits" collection of Cee-Lo songs. It features 15 Cee-Lo solo tracks, three Goodie Mob songs, and Cee-Lo's debut on the OutKast song "Git Up, Git Out". It's tentatively called Closet Freak: The Best Of Cee-Lo Green the Soul Machine.

[edit] Gnarls Barkley

Main article: Gnarls Barkley

Along with DJ Danger Mouse (of The Grey Album fame), Cee-Lo is currently part of a collaboration called Gnarls Barkley, Cee-Lo's most acclaimed and best selling work of his career. They first met when Danger Mouse took second in a talent contest and opened for OutKast and Goodie Mob at a University of Georgia concert in 1998. Afterwards, Danger Mouse gave Cee-Lo an instrumental demo tape and told him to call him if he was interested. They didn't make contact again until Cee-Lo was contacted to be featured in a remix of the Danger Mouse and Jemini song "What U Sittin' On?" from the album Ghetto Pop Life. They worked together again on the 2005 Danger Doom (Danger Mouse and MF Doom collaboration) album The Mouse and The Mask on the song "Benzi Box" where Cee-Lo sings the chorus.

Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo's first collaborative album, St. Elsewhere, was released on April 24, 2006 in the United Kingdom and May 2, 2006 in the United States. St. Elsewhere entered the charts at #1 in the UK, as did the first single "Crazy". "Crazy" is the first single to go straight to #1 in the UK based on digital download sales alone. The album is Cee-Lo's greatest selling venture yet, currently having shipped over 1 million copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan.

A new album by Gnarls Barkley, titled The Odd Couple, was scheduled for April 2008, with its first single released by January called Run. Due to an early leak of the album over the internet in early March, 2008, the duo decided to push up the release from April 8, to March 18.

[edit] Cee-Lo & Jazze Pha

Cee-lo is collaborating with producer Jazze Pha to release an album called Happy Hour on Jazze’s record label. The songs "Happy Hour" (as well as the remix with Bun B, Snoop Dogg & Tone Tone), "Man of the Hour", and "Disco Bitch" (featuring The Pussycat Dolls) from the album have already been released as singles and B-sides. Jazze Pha has produced numerous hit singles with many artists, but this project is his rapping and singing debut. Cee-Lo is co-producing the album with him, so both artist and producer share equal roles in vocals and production.

Although previously shelved, the album is expected to be rescheduled for release after the success of St. Elsewhere by original label Columbia Records.

[edit] Love Stink

Formally named "The Heart Attack", Cee-Lo teamed up with Plantlife's Jack Splash to form this group. "The Heart Attack" project is due out later this year. Very little is known about this upcoming collaboration, but a CD sampler was packaged in some of the early copies of St. Elsewhere with '70s-influenced songs like "Gangsta Boogie" and "Right Now." "Gangsta Boogie" was recently released on the Disturbia soundtrack.

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • Cee-Lo is extensively tattooed. Most of his tattoos are in non-English characters, but "R E V O L U T I O N" is spelled out stylistically in Old English font on his back (which can be seen on the back of his Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections CD case and in the Still Standing liner notes; under it, the Goodie Mob family tree from the cover of Still Standing is etched. "Trill", a Texas slang term, is written over his left ear. He references his numerous tattoos in a quick lyric from the song "Big Ole Words (Damn)" off of his Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections album saying, "[W]hat I believe within, I engrave it in my skin."
  • His real name was given as Thomas Burton by journalists during the peak of Goodie Mob's popularity.
  • Cee-Lo, together with the Goodie Mob appears in the film Mystery Men as a member of the "Not-So Goodie Mob".
  • He was featured on MTV's Cribs with his former wife.
  • He was also seen on MTV's "Super Sweet 16" when his daughter's party was featured
  • He is a fan of the 1984 comedy This is Spinal Tap, and has quoted the catchphrase "Up to Eleven" in concerts.
  • Appeared on the cartoon show The Brak Show, on Season 2's Episode 14 ("Brakstreet: Men In The Band"). He portrayed a nine mouthed rapper named "Prime Cut Miggity Mo Mack Daddy Jizza-Bang Doggie Dog Dog" who was in a rap competition. Each mouth sang a different vocal track.
  • Appeared as Godzilla in a parody of Training Day on an episode of Robot Chicken. He also appeared as the "Tablesmasher" and a Dog Playing Poker.
  • Appeared as "Reverend Rollo Goodlove" in two Season 2 episode of The Boondocks, one of which was only aired in Canada and not the USA.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Goodie Mob

[edit] Solo

[edit] Cee-Lo & Jazze Pha

[edit] Dungeon Family

[edit] Gnarls Barkley

[edit] Love Stink

[edit] Collaborations

  • With Seeed
    • "Aufstehn"
    • "Rise and Shine"

Miscellaneous

[edit] Background vocals

[edit] Other (writing, producing, etc.)

[edit] References

  1. ^ rollingstone.com "The Acid Nerd Gangsters" (reprint of an interview originally published in Rolling Stone Magazine), published August 9, 2006

[edit] External links

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Groups
Members
See also
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