by CeeLo Green
I understood full well that my mother’s friend was much older than me. Yet at the same time I understood that I could say the same thing twice, but a whole different way once my mother walked away. For example, there are two ways to say “Don’t you look beautiful today.” It all depended on how you savored that magical word “beautiful.” And being as fresh as I was, I was going to let it be known that I was attracted to this woman out loud, but I instinctively knew how to communicate that thought and keep it between me and her in private.
That understanding of being seductive had a lot of impact, and even as a kid I was aware of it and used it to my advantage. Technically and legally, what my mother’s friend did was wrong, but in my heart of hearts, I don’t feel like I was a true victim. I was not a passive participant then—I could never be passive then or now. For better or worse, I always knew what I was doing at all times. And there tends to be something wickedly charming about knowing what you’re doing, because it exempts you from being innocent. In a way, I’m not unlike that other devilishly appealing character Al Pacino played in The Devil’s Advocate. It’s like he says in that movie, “I’m the hand up Mona Lisa’s skirt. They never see me comin’!”
Whether it matters or not to any judge, for whatever reasons, I was advanced sexually. And I’m still a lady-killer, but for some reason, some people I run across still don’t believe me. They still don’t see me comin’! The irony always tickles me because I know that I don’t—and won’t ever—look on the outside like the stud that I am on the inside.
My sister, Shedonna, also reminds me that my love of older women meant that I always had time to flirt with her friends. As Shedonna remembers, “Because we look a lot alike and I am only two years older, Lo would tell my friends that we were the same age or twins so that he could hit on them and date them if he could. When we were out somewhere, Lo was always explaining—‘That’s not my girlfriend—that’s my sister,’ and he’d be asking for numbers. Lo has always been what you would consider fresh—with a strong love for beautiful women. Lo’s always loved mature women because he’s such an old soul.”
Maybe my attraction to older women had something to do with how different I was and how hard it was to get with girls my own age. I wasn’t exactly the guy to date, I wasn’t the high school football player. I had to get the girls alone. And if I could get the opportunity, they’d say, “Oh, I like him. He’s cool.”
That’s what happens to this day. Maybe I’ve seen too much of life for the average woman. There’s always that intimidation factor because I’m fearless. It’s natural to fear what you don’t know. And I make sure that you don’t know me completely.
At the same time, when I was an adolescent, what the girls—and boys—did know about me probably struck real fear into their little hearts. Because Chickenhead was still around and making a comeback, just in a slightly altered state.
Having discovered in military school that taking acid was not my personal trip, right about then I started to smoke weed—a tremendous and pungent amount of weed. This aromatic if thoroughly illegal and unhealthy passion combined exceptionally well with my other recently acquired interest—hardcore rap of the dirty gangsta variety.
Like almost everyone else of my generation and the generations that followed, rap hit me where it counted. Rap altered my entire worldview. The first record that I ever bought for myself was when I got a job over the summer between eighth and ninth grades and I took some money I had actually earned and bought Down by Law by MC Shan. I loved that song and another song MC Shan did with TJ Swan on the same album called “Left Me Lonely.” For reasons that may be obvious, I think I understood the meaning of being lonely from a very early age. Then I bought a 12-inch single for Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without a Pause” which was altogether mind-blowing in its own revolutionary right, and on the B-side was another masterpiece that spoke to me—“My Uzi Weighs a Ton.” The combination of brilliance and violence was so appealing to a young man and, compared to everything that came before it, so damn trippy. The “Look of Love,” this wasn’t.
For me and for countless others of my generation, Public Enemy’s sound changed the way we experienced the world around us. This was more than political rap with lots of attitude. To my ears, this was like Parliament-Funkadelic for a whole new era—it was fantastically black and psychedelic and something about the group’s mutant weirdness and desire to have their say really spoke to me. Public Enemy were true street poets and troublemakers in the best sense. This was rap. This was rock. And most of all, this was thoroughly mind-expanding.
The next rap artist to blow my mind was Too $hort—a little guy who had the big balls to put a dollar sign in his name way before Ke$ha tried the same thing. The music was minimal but with fierce beats I can still feel, and the filthy streetwise words left little or nothing to the imagination—a bluntness that helped fire up my own imagination forever more. Too $hort was talking about the street scene happening in Oakland, not Atlanta, but the same dirty things that were on my young mind were apparently on Too $hort’s too. Looking back, some of Too $hort’s lyrics make “Fuck You” look like an entirely sweet little nursery rhyme—in fact, the words “fuck” and “you” were two of the nicest in his songs. But as an immature, horny kid with a few anger issues of my own, I loved every word that Too $hort rapped, and just between us, I still do.
Believe me, songs like “Freaky Tales” by Too $hort were so trippy you could get a decent contact high simply from listening to them. I was too young to drive at the time, but this was music you had to listen to while driving the streets looking at girls. My friend Bert—we used to call him Super Bert P—he had a nice system with Cerwin Vega speakers pounding away in the back of his Hyundai Hatchback—and we loved going anywhere as long as we were listening to Too $hort tell everyone in the world “Fuck You” way before I did.
Other than the occasional crazy joint from 2 Live Crew, we had never heard anyone talk so vile, and we just loved it. This was music that spoke our language fluently. We were young wild boys out in the street getting drunk drinking Olde English—that’s all we used to drink, 40s of Olde English. Rapping along with Too $hort, we could imagine that we were the ultimate gangstas. People think that music was West Coast shit completely—but it wasn’t. That was some young stupid ghetto shit, and the good thing was that you could be stupid just about anywhere you wanted. Frankly, that might have been a pretty good rap name for me back then—Too $tupid.
The Atlanta public school system gave me another chance—perhaps unwisely—and I enrolled in Benjamin E. Mays High School to finish freshman year with all my homeboys. But I kept skipping class and getting kicked out for bad behavior, so I never moved up. After repeating the ninth grade twice, I ended up in Frank McClaren Technical School—a place of last resort for kids with problems or dropouts who needed to get their GEDs. That only lasted for a few months before I gave up for good. As you can imagine, this did not go down very well in my family full of professionals with advanced degrees. I hadn’t told anybody I was flunking out and then dropping out. Shedonna, who was on her way to college at the time, was so disappointed she could barely speak to me. And, boys and girls out there, it is shameful not to get a formal education when you have the chance. I do not recommend the path I took. But by the time I left high school, I was putting myself through an intensive self-education in the School of Rap at the venerable University of Hip-Hop.
One of the only useful things about my time at McClaren was reconnecting with André Benjamin, my friend Dré from third grade, who had also turned into a bad boy. Dré was already rapping, and by then, so was I. We started hanging out together, and he introduced me to his friend Antwan Patton, who was going by “Big Boi.” We’d go over to Big Boi’s aunt’s house and work on our rhymes. They were performing as a group called 2 Shades Deep at the time, and sometimes I would step in with them.
Many years later, once OutKast became an international sensation, Dré gave some interview in which
he told the whole world that I was a bully in high school—which I wasn’t. I only picked on bigger kids. But I remember that Dré called me something like “the Slap Master,” which frankly I kind of like now that I think about it. As I always say, it’s better to be the master than the slave. I remember hearing that Big Boi told everyone that I was a “high school hothead” who would “smack the shit out of people.” Were they making all that shit up? Hell, no, but did they have to tell everybody? Seriously, I should slap those two again next time I see them. You know, not to hurt them because I love them both. No, if I slapped them it would just be for old time’s sake.
It seems funny to me now, but back then, I was on the brink of something I was lucky to have survived.
I had meant to leave Chickenhead behind when I’d exiled myself to military school, but I have to admit that I took a little bag of chickenheads to Riverside with me. I thought they might come in handy for something. And as soon as I got back to the neighborhood, I returned to my old, wicked ways—and then took it to another level. Sometimes, when I look back, I can’t believe my infamous former self. Isn’t it hard to believe, with what I’ve become? But the truth is the truth.
When I was young, I felt as if Evil wanted to put me in powerful positions. If I didn’t turn out to be famous, I honestly think I would have ended up being infamous. By now, I’m pretty sure I would have had my very own special episode of American Gangster. And possibly, in my tortured soul, I would take just as much pride in that achievement. There’s a certain pride in being good at anything. Even being good at being bad can be gratifying, whether we choose to admit it or not.
In a weird way, criminals are stars. There is probably not a rapper who doesn’t consider Al Pacino in Scarface a true hip-hop icon, for instance. But at the same time, I’ve learned that being a criminal is the polar opposite—the flip side, if you will—to being a star. That’s because when you have a big song on the radio or a big show on television—or in my case, both—everybody is suddenly more excited to see you.
Fame changes you only in the sense that it changes the way the world looks at you. I now know what it feels like to have people rushing toward you, wanting to get an autograph or grab a kiss or even take a handout. People just can’t wait to connect with you on some level and share at least a moment in time, especially one they can capture on their cell phone and tweet. Being a thug was the other side of that feeling. Once I became known as a bad guy in the neighborhood, people were tucking their chains inside their shirts and literally were running in the opposite direction when they saw me, like I was a monster—which in a way I guess I was.
Long before I ever knew what it was like to be famous, I understood what it meant to be infamous. When I came around, people began to know what to expect, and I began to see them walk away as fast as possible in the opposite direction. They say that if you can’t be loved, then you should try to be feared—and before long, I began to feel other people’s fear most places I went. If stealing was my crazy, idiotic way of looking for love in all the wrong places, it definitely stopped working for me rather quickly.
Thinking back on the things I’ve done wrong, I’ve done some soul searching, and here’s what I’ve found: To me, all goodness and evil come from the same place. I was willing to accept whatever was natural to me, and both ways were natural.
And so I was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wanted to connect with people but could feel they had an attitude about me that I couldn’t tolerate. As a teenager, people made me feel so alienated and awkward. If they looked at me funny because I was different, I just made myself more different. If they scorned me or disrespected me, I might want to hurt them. Sometimes I wanted to be a killer. I wish I wasn’t serious, but I am. I think it was because I felt so much hurt at times, I wanted someone to hurt worse than I hurt, and that turned me mean and violent. I knew I had it inside me to love unconditionally, but I could never get over the fact that people could reject me without knowing me, before I could even introduce myself. In my confusion, I felt like that made people expendable. I felt there was something defective about the hearts of people who could hurt me that way. Going after them didn’t feel wrong to me. It felt more like an extreme case of seeking justice in a universe where it could be elusive.
In my mind it went, “Now, I may be strange or peculiar and all those wonderful things that you call me. But let me take some initiative and show you why it’s better to keep your mouth shut about me, or leave me alone.” Not only would I give it to those who deserved it, I might get somebody who was looking the other way, who didn’t have the balls to be disrespectful, but was probably thinking it too. I could feel it. This sense is what still helps me identify certain energies. My assumptions have protected me for a long, long time now. And ask me now, my knowledge of self shines so brightly, at this point I repel these kinds of personalities—they don’t want nothing to do with me. My life is almost completely sucker free.
Thankfully, I eventually grew up a little and moved toward the light. Deep down, I think I really wanted to be loved more, not hated. That’s finally what saved me and helped me put aside for good my fairly comfortable life of crime. That desire to be loved may be what ultimately saved me from killing somebody and in the process ruining my own life too. I began to realize that I actually did have a heart, and possibly I should start using it. Around this time I could feel a subtle shift happening in my soul—the Good was starting to edge out the Evil. I think it was because I wasn’t just listening to music anymore, I was starting to create it. It was music that would finally give me the key I needed to connect with people. It gave me this benevolence. Who uses a word like benevolence? Certainly no black kid from Atlanta Georgia with an eighth-grade education. But it gave me peace, I understood. And my understanding began to outweigh my anger.
When I was about fourteen or fifteen, Shedonna started dating a DJ named Al, who was deep into the hip-hop scene. He let me tag along with him to the studio, where I got my first taste of how music is made. Here is where my sense of music history really helped me out as I found my way into the music business. I knew all about soul singing before I ever tried to rap. This is where all those voices in my head and on the radio from early on paid off for me. Unlike a lot of kids, I knew my Jackie Wilson before I learned my Too $hort. When I got into rap, I went deep. So I already knew that rapping and singing had been done by the Force MDs and by UTFO, but to the kids who didn’t know, I must have seemed exotic. To some people, I still do.
My experience of hip-hop was expanding, and I was inspired by Grandmaster Melle Mel. Fusing the urban sensibility, urban urgency with social conscience—stylized on stage with spikes and leather. Melle Mel is truly the godfather to me. His theme song to Beat Street was prophetic, the best rap song ever. I studied the hip-hop masters Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force. Everything stemmed from them, they influenced the native tongue. They were putting out what hip-hop was supposed to be, a renaissance if you will of all the four facets of hip-hop: graffiti, DJ-ing, MC-ing, and, of course, dance. At the time, Queen Latifah also spoke to me, along with N.W.A., 8Ball, Heavy D, Biggie, the list goes on. But if there was anyone who helped shape my style, it was Tupac. I felt connected to Tupac’s earlier approach, long raps like “Trapped” and “Brenda’s Got a Baby.” Storytelling was my forte when I started to write. I was carrying a rhyme pad with me everywhere I went, writing long story raps. The first song I ever wrote was called “Raiders of the Lost Rhyme.” Too bad I don’t remember the lyrics.
As stupid and stoned as I may have been back then, I already knew I wanted to be a rapper, but I felt I needed some safety in numbers. Having spent so much time in my young life on my own, it seemed like it was time for this lone wolf to get some kind of gang going for myself. Any kind of gang would do. At that moment, I could have met anyone in the world, and taken another bad turn and ended up dead. But instead I met a man who would help change my life—and who’s still helping me change it right now—my man Gipp.
In the movies they would say we met cute—I went over to his house to buy some weed. I was in the same class with his younger brother, so we knew each other by reputation alone: I knew Gipp was a rapper and he knew I was a robber. Eventually it was music that brought us together, and before long I had found my mob.
Big Gipp: Before I even knew CeeLo, I knew of him, because in the neighborhood, Chickenhead was infamous. He was not someone to be fucked with. Lots of good people were afraid of him. Hell, bad people were afraid of him too. CeeLo was always at Greenbriar Mall, and always with older kids. He was a known entity. If someone had done someone some wrong, the first person we were going to ask to slap somebody was Lo. CeeLo would be the smallest person there, and he’d walk right up and hit the biggest person there. He wasn’t afraid of anything. I swear, back then Lo would walk up and fight a lion if someone asked him to.
CeeLo was a terror. He used to get on the train and do robberies hands on. He wasn’t into having no gun, and he wanted no help. He just robbed people by himself most of the time—a lone wolf. And you’ve got to remember CeeLo was just this little guy, so at first, they didn’t perceive any threat. So I guess you could say that those poor people were the first—but not the last—folks to go broke underestimating CeeLo! The people who didn’t think he was a threat—well, that became one mistake in their lives that they would remember.