Gnarls Barkley Uncensored, Part 1

    


   My third and latest cover story is out for your reading pleasure.  I usually grab three copies from the newsstand, but boss man Ryan Ford invited me over to grab a couple from his New York shipment.  So I might have to just come over and do that from now on!

       Anyway, this story was one of my most inspired and I had such a great time with Cee-Lo and DangerMouse.  I would like to think of myself as resourceful for not wasting such great material on quotes that never made it to the 2000+ word piece, so of course, you lucky folks are the first to get it.  

Cee-Lo on their new album,  The Odd Couple:

It’s like deciphering a hieroglyphic, something that seems very ancient. It seems like the lyrics are there already and you’re blowing off the dust to the scrapbook of my life. It’ll make my whole life make sense.

The still water does run deep, and maybe that’s what resonates with people. They know that we’re not fucking around.

Danger on classifying their music:

It’s such a cliché for us to say that you can’t categorize us, or that you shouldn’t, but it kind of does everybody a disservice to keep doing that. At some point, we have to be the first ones to insist on not doing that. It implies so much when you call something “Hip Hop”. It really implies some stereotypical shit and it doesn’t help anybody. How are they ever gonna be inspired by it?

People get stuck in that so much, especially with supposedly “urban artists: it’s not about what you’re able to do – they always talk like, “Use your abilities” – but it’s not about that. You should do what you love and what you want to do. You’re big and tall, doesn’t mean you have to play basketball.

I think that calling stuff “Hip Hop” does nothing but hurt it at this point – in all forms of it. If you’re black, and you’re making music in the 90s, you’re going to the Hip Hop section. Or if you don’t it’s because you’re deliberately trying to do something than what you’re supposed to be doing, which is bullshit.

Cee-Lo on the most emotional song of the album:

Me: What is your writing process? Do you have to get into a certain mood, especially since your lyrics are so profound?

Cee-Lo: I don’t have a formula. Danger’s production has this ability to provoke and compel life experience from me in a way that is unparalleled.

For example, the track “She Knows”. This track is not supposed to remind me of my mother, who is deceased, but it did. and I can’t believe I’m about to consider trying to sum up that universe of emotion in about two minutes and 36 seconds. But in some awesome way, I’m able to be affective in that short amount of time. And I’m challenged by it as well.

If anything, when we are aspiring to contribute to music as a whole, that people should demand more of themselves

To simply say, we’re doing what we can, but it’s easy in that way.

Go ahead and pick that up at the newsstand to get the cover story in its entirety, andcheck back tommorrow for Part 2 of Gnarls Barkley Uncensored with quotes about the upcoming Goodie Mob reunion and Big Gipp!