by CeeLo Green
For some reason, I remember for sure that my father’s cup holder was always full of peppermint candies. Putting those peppermints in the car is something that I’ve imitated many times in my life in many cars—maybe because it’s one of the only family traditions that I actually share with a man who left this world so quickly on his way to the next stop. That and a love of fine clothes. I’m not kidding when I say that I was wearing suits to school in grade school, and carrying around the ivory pipe he left behind with my mother. It may not be the biggest inheritance any son ever received, but at least it’s mine.
My dad also must have loved to put on cologne that smelled something like leather. There was a sort of manly, musky smell that I will forever associate with him. Yeah, I know this may sound a little odd to say, but that’s what stays with me about my father even after all these decades. I really only knew the man who was my father by smell. That’s how I can remember him being there and then not being there.
There were always a few pictures of my father around somewhere wherever we lived. I wish I knew where those photos were now, but I really don’t. Today, if I want to see what my father looked like, I just take a good look in the mirror. I’m told that I favor him strongly. But in an odd way, I’ve sometimes felt as if he almost never existed. For me, my father—and the whole idea of a father—became first and foremost a very big hole that I had to figure out how to fill somehow. I didn’t always fill that hole with good things either.
Please understand that my earthly dad had the best excuse any absent father could ever have, but he left behind a void that could never truly be filled. Growing up all over the place with my mom, with my grandmother, my aunt, and my sister—and lots of times on my own—I was understandably pretty clueless about what it meant to be a man. Maybe because my father’s voice was silenced forever, just as I was getting used to hearing it, I gravitated to another set of male voices, ones that I heard drifting into my earliest memories.
Big Gipp: Lo and I grew up in similar parts of town, but my life and his were totally different because my father was always there and sadly CeeLo’s father was never there. My father worked for UPS and my parents were still married, and you could say I had a little better lifestyle than most of my friends. So my experience growing up was different and easier than CeeLo’s. But CeeLo was far from the only kid living with that kind of void in his life.
We always had enough in our house, but where we grew up in Atlanta, you always had a friend nearby who didn’t have what you had. We all walked the same streets. And we didn’t feel inferior in any way. We learned the lessons of Dr. King, and we could go downtown and see where he spread the word. All of the Civil Rights leaders, all their families lived throughout our neighborhoods, so it was always about being someone who stood up for justice.
The black revolution started in Atlanta, and by the time we were aware, I think there were more black and white friendships and understanding than anywhere else in the South. My grandmother was a black country woman who never left the country, but she owned land so she could call her white congressman downtown and get him on the phone. There’s still racism and there’s still bigotry to a point, but Atlanta was a place where if your people knew some people, they’d work with you. Yes, there were more white people in Atlanta who were rich, but there were plenty of rich black people in Atlanta too—there were examples everywhere that we could make it too. So there was no sense of hopelessness. We came up in that era when black folks started getting good jobs. Lots of families were moving on up. It was our version of the American dream—or something like it.
And that’s the attitude CeeLo always had and the one that he got from his mother, rest her soul. His mom was an entrepreneur, a hustler who always had something going on, something starting up. She had a store in the mall, and so even if his family didn’t have money, you would never perceive it that way because CeeLo has always had style—and his own style at that. CeeLo always had the freshest clothes. He always had the presentation of a street cat who was up on his game. Rich or poor or anywhere in between, he looked good.
I am pretty sure that I’m not the first man to hear voices in my head.
Some people hear voices telling them to do terrible things. Thankfully, I haven’t heard too many of those voices lately. Instead, the most powerful voices in my head have always been those of older men who spoke to me and eventually helped me find my own voice. It wasn’t just the Brothers Johnson on that enchanted psychedelic evening at my grandmother’s house. I’m talking about musical giants like James Brown and Jackie Wilson—and all-time masters like Al Green, Bill Withers, and Ray Charles to name just a few. I’d hear them on the radio, or over at my aunt Audrey’s, where I watched Soul Train every Saturday morning, and then sang along to the records she played while she cleaned the house.
Like my own father, some of these men were already dead and gone by the time I heard them singing, but somehow their timeless voices could still reach out and share their secrets with a little kid who needed all the clues he could find. Through those voices and their shining examples of what it means to be a man in this world, I learned everything I ever really needed to know about men, and women too.
Just like family members who knew and loved me, these voices inside my head became part of who I am today, and they all pointed me down a path at a time when I needed any sense of direction I could find.
To my ears, these great singers all sang in powerful and distinctive voices, and they all sounded like men living their lives on their own terms. Those men also represented the father I wanted, the daddy I didn’t have. Somebody cool. I always thought, if I did have a daddy, this is how he would make me feel warm and cozy and totally interested in every word he was saying.
You can learn so much about a man from listening to his voice. I think back to the nimbleness I first heard in a voice like Jackie Wilson’s—a voice so serious and so subtle and honey sweet, all at the same time. The very first record that ever spoke to me was by Jackie Wilson—it was called “Doggin’ Around” and was a hit way back in 1960. Still, hearing it many years later, I remember being stunned by how this man was saying everything I wanted to say exactly like I wanted to say it. Jackie’s song didn’t say “fuck you,” or even “forget you,” like I eventually would, but in my head at least, the idea was pretty much the same.
Singers like Jackie Wilson had so much personality in their voices, and back then, they had to. Jackie was singing to the masses way before video killed the radio star. Back then you had to be able to establish your identity with just your voice. In the deeper voice of James Brown and ageless anthems like “I Got You (I Feel Good),” “Super Bad,” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” I learned so much about strength and about the unstoppable force of pure self-expression. From the gritty but always heartfelt voice of Bill Withers singing “Lean on Me,” “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Use Me,” and “Grandma’s Hands,” I learned everything imaginable about character, and integrity, and how to be a man and still remain vulnerable to feeling things deeply. Something about the fatherly warmth in Bill Withers’ voice helped me imagine that someday there really could be a “Lovely Day.” I remember how much my mother loved that song, and I imagine how much she needed a “Lovely Day.”
I remember the incredible feeling as a kid of not being able to tell where my voice ended and Jackie Wilson’s or James Brown’s began. I loved that. Singing along with those voices gave me so much more than simply a warm, comforting feeling—though Lord knows we all need that sense of safety sometimes. In the end, this was the best education that I could ever have, musically or otherwise. It was an education that spoke to me in a way that school somehow never seemed to do. See, I believe that you can’t miss when you’re learning from the greats—because this way you’re learning your lessons directly from the best of the best.
Maybe that explains how, before very long, I could sing along to all of these amazing songs and imitate all of my heroes’ vocal runs and turns
, all of their dramatic stops and starts to a kind of exactness—to a point where my voice became flush right against theirs. Every time I sang along with these great singers, it was like I was hugging onto these voices for dear life—which in a way I suppose I was.
Without these voices, there would be no Goodie Mob, no Gnarls Barkley, and no CeeLo Green as you know and—I hope—love him. So when people come up to me today and tell me something in my voice reminds them of one of their favorite old soul singers, I have to laugh. In a way, they’re just noticing a very strong family resemblance to all the singers who were like family to me.
As you shall see, from any perspective, I was a wild child growing up, and more than anything or anyone else, it was music and television that tamed me. I think my musical talent had to come from God—or maybe the other guy. My mother could sing, she was in the church choir, but she wasn’t a singer. My aunt Audrey sang part time in a dance band that specialized in top 40s and R&B. But she’s the only case of formal music talent I know of anywhere in my family. So I’ve always assumed my connection with music came from somewhere beyond just here.
Right before my father died, my mom got a job with the Atlanta fire department. It was such a big thing that she was written up in Jet magazine as one of the first seven African American women to join the department. There’s a photo spread, including one of me and Shedonna with our mom outside the apartment where we were living then. My mom wasn’t a big woman, but she was strong and smart and mentally tough. Again, I don’t remember much about that time except that she was gone for days on end, because of her schedule at the firehouse. Shedonna and I spent a lot of time with Aunt Audrey or our grandmother.
Nobody knows for sure why, but my mom didn’t stay with the fire department too long. It was a hard job for women, and she probably suffered a fair amount of harassment, although she could always speak her mind and stand her ground. She also never met a stranger, and she could be very funny. Aunt Audrey thinks she just wanted to do something different. So she quit that job and trained to be a respiratory therapist. She was also regional membership coordinator for the NAACP. There was nothing she couldn’t do. My mother was truly a trip, and for better or worse, I was on that trip. Like a lot of moms in the Dirty South, she did whatever she needed to do to survive. She was always on the hustle, just to keep her family going. She owned a limousine service at one time, and she opened the first black bridal shop in the Greenbriar Mall, out on the West Side. I used to spend a lot of time hanging out there, checking out the styles in the shop windows. We may not have had much money, but I always knew how to dress.
All this time we lived in different neighborhoods. A lot of them. It was feast or famine, but maybe a little more famine, though I still ate more than my share. There were times when my mom would miraculously find some way to put a down payment on some big-ass house and we’d live there for a while then suddenly, when that jig was up, we’d have to leave in the middle of the night. We’d stay with friends for a while. Then we’d start losing those friends. Then we’d live in a boyfriend’s house for a while. Then suddenly we’d be back in a big-ass house until we’d have to leave there too. It was crazy. We’d be driving in a Rolls-Royce one day, then be broke the next. Mom married two more times but never stayed married long.
The one thing that we could count on in our lives was our grandmother’s house in Cascade Heights. We always felt welcome and safe there. Ruby Callaway Robinson—she remarried after her first husband passed—was a strong, old-school Southern woman with a heart of gold. Grandma worked for years at Fort McPherson over in East Point, then got her license as a practical nurse when she was in her forties. Thomas Callaway had been a terrible alcoholic, and she decided it was her mission to spread the word about the disease of addiction and give people the help she never got. She founded a grassroots campaign called CASCADE, Inc., which stood for Comprehensive Auxiliary for Southwest Community on Alcohol and Drug Education. She organized youth drug walks where thousands marched through the streets of Atlanta and set up all-night workshops where kids could spend the night safely. Her work got the attention of Nancy Reagan, who invited my grandmother to the White House and had her join in her “Just Say No” campaign. You could say this was kind of ironic, considering the kind of things I got up to when I was a teenager. But if Grandma knew, she never held it against me. I could do no wrong in her eyes. And it’s always wonderful to have someone like that in your life. We were close right up until she passed away. Even into her eighties, she wanted to cook for me whenever I went back home.
I was raised by women and grew up an unusual, even peculiar child. I was extroverted on the outside but lonely on the inside. I always felt out of place in a way I couldn’t explain. But I’m told I was an entertainer from the moment I could walk and talk. As my aunt Audrey remembers, “Some kind of way, Carlo was going to get somebody’s attention.” She thought I was an “old soul,” but a mischievous one. One minute I’d be singing in an old-man’s voice like Ray Charles, the next I’d be tying a towel around my neck for a cape, jumping off the furniture like Superman. Or faking an asthma attack, just to see what people would do. I went through a lot of phases, I’m told, and superheroes were my main theme. There was a time when I was the Incredible Hulk, and I’d take a scissors to all my clothes, shredding them the way the Hulk would do when he burst into action, and cutting off the bottoms of my shirts. I had another phase where I’d wear Spider-Man pajamas day and night, and sometimes pull pantyhose over my head for the best effect. But Superman was my favorite. I wouldn’t take those pajamas off, even for school—unless I’d decided to wear a suit. My mother would try to talk me into wearing jeans or things that the other kids wore, but I refused. “Let him do it, Sheila,” my grandmother would say. “He’s just a child, so leave him alone.”
While I was still being Superman, I also went through a break-dancing phase. I must have been in the third or fourth grade. I would take thick sheets of cardboard and tape them together, then invite the neighborhood kids wherever we were living at the time to come over and practice some b-boy moves. Now, you may have noticed that I’ve got a big head. Believe me, it looked even bigger when I was a kid, and I used to get teased about it. But it turned into an advantage when it came time to learn those head spins. There was another move called the centipede where you bounce on the ground like a worm. I got good at that too.
When my mother went shopping at the mall, I would dress up as Superman and go with her. Mom had found religion by then and didn’t approve of secular music, but as soon as she would go into a store, I’d ask Shedonna to be the lookout while I slipped out and started breaking for tips. I’d tell her, “Just give me ten minutes and see how much money I can make!” A crowd would gather to watch the cute little Superman breaking, but as soon as I got the signal I’d scoop my coins and run. Mom would never know what happened.
My sister, Shedonna, was my protector and sometimes my accomplice. She wasn’t so busy causing trouble like I was all the time, and she got labeled “the good child” because she learned how to stay out of Mom’s way. We were always two very different people. She was more of an introvert, and me, well, I was more of a lovable psychopath. Shedonna had common sense, and I had none at all. But the two of us went through the same crazy childhood, and we’re bonded forever. Looking back, I think the truth is that my sister tried to look out for her extremely troublesome little brother the best that she could under some very difficult circumstances.
There was a lot of love in our home, but growing up, Shedonna and I would argue over just about anything. I was short for my age, and people often thought we were twins, and maybe that just intensified the sibling rivalry. We always bickered about whose turn it was to do the chores. I used to drive her crazy when I stuffed my dirty clothes in the closet and ended up borrowing her clean socks to go to school. Yes, sometimes those socks had frilly ruffles, but I didn’t care. I told you I was peculiar.
Even while we were torturing each other,
there were still so many acts of kindness from my sister that I will never forget. For instance, growing up we didn’t have much money, so when we got McDonald’s, that was something very, very special. And I savored every bite, but as slowly as I ate, there would still come the moment when my Big Mac was gone. And I knew that however much we fought, my sister loved me because she would make the ultimate sacrifice—in my mind at least—and give me the last bite of her Big Mac. That, ladies and gentleman, is one definition of true love.
Shedonna was always a great student, but I never liked school. I thought it was kind of stupid, and I was always speaking my mind and getting in trouble. For the third grade we were bused to a mostly white school in Buckhead, one of Atlanta’s fanciest neighborhoods. One day the teacher was lecturing us about George Washington and I raised my hand.
“Why can’t we talk about Martin Luther King?” I said.
I guess the teacher wasn’t used to being challenged by a little black kid, so she didn’t have much of an answer. She said something about that’s not what we were studying and that Martin Luther King didn’t come from this neighborhood.
“Well, neither did George Washington!” I said.
The only good thing I remember about that class was that I met a kid my age named André Benjamin, who was also bused up from the Southwest. He would play a big role in my life later on, when I met him again in high school, and later as part of the Dungeon Family and a member of OutKast. But then he was just Dré, who used to get teased because his mother would smear Vaseline on his face every day before school. Teasing was something I already knew about.