Happy 25th Anniversary to Goodie Mob’s debut album Soul Food, originally released November 7, 1995.
Towards the end of Soul Food, Goodie Mob’s debut album, there’s a snippet of in-studio conversation where Thomas “Cee-Lo” Calloway discusses how white supremacy may be a tool of divine inspiration for him to be a better person as a young Black man.
“[God] is working through them crackers to save us, in a sense,” he says. “So, the evil that they do is supposed to bring something out of us. So, is it bad, what they do? Because it’s opening our eyes to some things.”
Now, I’ve never been a particularly religious person. And I’ve certainly never been a young Black man in the United States (or anywhere else). But I can recognize that these sentiments are at the heart of Soul Food, released 25 years ago. Racism and white supremacy are destructive forces that systematically continue to beat down the Black population of this country, both physically and mentally. But this cancer has forced the members of the group to educate themselves and take action, and made them ready to take up action against these corrupt and racist institutions.
Goodie Mob was the spiritual soul of the Dungeon Family collective, which began making noise with OutKast in 1993 and 1994, but whose presence began to take formal shape throughout the mid-’90s and beyond. OutKast were the transcendent oddballs, increasingly willing to escort their listeners on fantastical journeys as their career progressed. Goodie Mob had the soil from the Dungeon coursing through their veins. It was as if all sprouted from that dirt floor of their hangout and studio, emerging as holy street warriors, toughened by the struggle, and ready to do battle.
Cee-Lo, Cameron “Big” Gipp, Willie “Khujo” Knighton, and Robert “T-Mo” Barnett comprise as unique of a collective of emcees that were ever assembled into a four-man crew, each bringing something new and refreshing to the table. Cee-Lo was eventually the breakout star, with his high-pitched rasp and powerful singing voice. However, the gruff-voiced Khujo, deep-bass tones of Gipp, and boundless energy of T-Mo are all indispensable. Combined with the angst-drenched soul of Organized Noize’s production, they put together one of the best albums of 1995 and from the Atlanta scene overall.
Soul Food is very much a spiritual album, as the foursome is a deeply spiritual group. “The Day After,” which closes the album, is practically a gospel song, with the group envisioning salvation and transcendence from worldly pain as an eventual reward for learning to live righteously. But much of Soul Food is focused on examining the terror that the world inflicts upon them, and the group consistently resolves not to toil away in silence. Instead, action is a constant, and often the ends will justify the means.
On “Fighting,” Goodie Mob reflects on the psychological damage they’ve sustained through the years of struggling to make it on the Atlanta streets, facing poverty, the cops, the government, and the constant specter of death. But as mentioned before, they also search for ways to transform their pain into a means of becoming stronger. It’s fitting the track begins with the recitation of the serenity prayer, as all four search for ways to pick their battles. Throughout the track, most of the members sound burnt out from the constant conflict. “The way things going today I might as well be dead, so dread,” Khujo raps. “The voices on the radio got me seamed / Can’t put a smile on my face ’cause my pockets ain’t straight / At least not the way I want ’em to be.”
Cee-Lo ends the track with his Sermon on the Mount, a nearly minute-and-a-half speech/spoken word piece, where he breaks down the purpose that Goodie Mob works to serve, and the meaning of the group’s name; “The Good Die Mostly Over Bullshit” or “God is Every Man of Blackness,” if you don’t know. “The enemy is after your spirit, but you think it’s all in your mind,” he preaches. “You'll find a lot of the reason we behind / Is because the system is designed to keep our third eyes blind / But not blind in the sense that our other two eyes can’t see / You just end investing quality time in places you don't even need to be.”
Soul Food is filled with deep treatises on the societal ills that the Black population wrestles with through their daily existence. “Thought Process” features the group and OutKast’s André Benjamin reflecting on the neighborhoods that raised them, where police officers and street violence pose imminent threats to their existence. “Sesame Street” features detailed descriptions of the societal decay that permeates their lives, where home burglaries on Christmas are a regular occurrence, and where you’re forced to “[wish] upon a star for a trace of happiness.”
Soul Food also features one of the best and most memorable collections of singles for any album released in the mid-1990s. “Cell Therapy,” the first single, put the group as a whole on the map, and still stands out as a uniquely grim anthem. Goodie Mob were apparently inspired to right the song after Busta Rhymes gave them a copy of William Cooper’s Behold a Pale Horse. But rather than espouse conspiracy theories, the group explores gentrification and urban blight as tools of systematic oppression, and how these forces effect the psyche of the Black population. The beat created by Organized Noize is one of their most distinctive, as they loop up a few spare piano notes, adding in seemingly random animal croaks and the sound of either an airplane landing or a vacuum; I’ve never been able to discern which.
Even better is “Dirty South,” a deceptively mellow ode to the grit and dirt that permeates southern culture. The song is weird for a Goodie Mob song, seeing as only one member of the group, Gipp, kicks a verse on it. Gipp’s closing verse is preceded by two verses from fellow Dungeon Family O.G. Cool Breeze (who reportedly is the one who coined the term “Dirty South”) and another by OutKast’s Big Boi that has very little to do with the song’s theme. Still, it’s the best song on the album and one of my personal favorite tracks ever. Cool Breeze’s laid-back presence and delivery infuses the track with an unmistakable cool, even if he gives the recipe for “Lemonhead Delight.” The track is sparse and moving, as Organized pair the bass from the intro to Hubert Laws’ “Passacaglia in C Minor,” with creeping, muted horns and keys, coupled with extra percussion.
The album’s title track is its most celebratory entry, an upbeat dedication to the cleansing power of music and the vital nourishment that it provides. Yes, the metaphors are pretty on the nose, as they praise slow-cooked sustenance while shunning fast food for its disposability. However, sincerity and joy are infectious, as the group describes their salvation through the musical medium. Cee-Lo thanking “the Lord because my voice is recordable” is always moving.
“Live at the O.M.N.I.” serves as Soul Food’s protest song, with the group railing against mass incarceration within the Black community. Driven by funky guitars and neck-snapping drums, the members of the group promote massive protests against poor conditions in the city jails and prisons, with Gipp declaring “one million n****s showed up at your door to get it on, with the new clan coming live…”
“Guess Who?” mixes sentiment with sadness, as the members of the crew pay tribute to their moms. Over a slow piano groove, whistling chimes, and hard-hitting drums, each emcee describes the central role the mother who raised them had in their education and shaping their values. All portray their mothers as three-dimensional human beings, rather than infallible saints, reflecting on their love for these strong, but imperfect, women.
“Goodie Bag” is the rare non-conceptual song on the album, an up-tempo track where all four emcees ponder their lives as the traverse the Atlanta streets. Khujo side-eyes anyone giving him “left-hand dap,” while Big Gipp works to enjoy the day, thankful he’s not caught up in “254” (slang for Atlanta City Detention Center). The song is also notable for Cee-Lo’s epic, nearly two-minutes-long stream of consciousness final verse, which he mostly freestyles, and has a blast doing so.
Soul Food returns to more somber territory with “I Didn’t Ask To Come,” a meditation on finding a way to scrape by in an environment where every path seems to lead to a violent death. T-Mo envisions building a better life for himself through the spoils of crime, knowing that he doesn’t have many options. “The system ain't given T-Mo a chance,” he raps. “Twenty-two on the loose and Black / Trying to get the noose a little slack around my neck / They making it hard for a brother to cope.” Cee-Lo again has a powerful closing verse, rapping from the perspective of watching the body of his friend (the group’s real-life buddy, King Bean) at his funeral. “Maybe his life was something that he had to give to show me,” he contemplates. “That I need to be responsible about how I live.”
Soul Food remains a great and uplifting project, reflecting the real tragedies of life in the streets, but never wallowing in them. The struggle is real, but never fetishized. And by the album’s end, you feel that all four members of Goodie Mob have emerged from the crucible of their environment as better people. The best type of music makes you really care about the lives of the people that create it, and Soul Food is wildly successful to that end.
LISTEN: