Bass Head Jazz

GENERAL    By TSSCrew on October 20, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Words by Jesse H.

One of the most interesting days of my life has to be the day after I got high for the first time. Now, I’ve never been a big smoker. Nut my experience with the green stuff is that for some odd reason, the morning after I smoke is when I’m really in another dimension, creative as I’ve ever felt, and really taking the time to savor every single element of every single second. How ironic though that the morning after my first time feeling it, when locked in my “office” for my job this summer (a hastily converted janitor’s closet, the most drab of environments for anyone), I got sucked into another world and had one of the weirdest (and best) experiences I’ve ever had.

I had the lights turned off because they were messing with my head, and I was staring blankly at the database I was supposed to be going through on my computer screen. I remember I had a can of pineapple juice that was more like a rocket ship to me. Every sip tasted more vivid than the one before. Then “Bass Head Jazz” came on shuffle and straight blew my mind. I’m talking a synapse rearrangement. All of the sudden I was inside of the can, jumping from flavor to flavor in a world that nobody seemed to understand but the crooning singer. Every gulp further into the can was a peek into a new galaxy, with evolving landscapes that matched the song I was hearing. Maybe it was the drug induced morning after, or maybe it was the artist himself, the criminally underrated Cee-Lo Green. I guess I think it was a little bit of both, but in general I think if you listen to it with an open mind, that’s what Cee-Lo’s music does to you, but you’ve got to be willing to forget the rules for awhile.

Cee-Lo’s always had that strange otherworldly appeal to him, and on every song it seems like he always has more talent than he’s giving us (even though he’s giving us a considerable amount). Not like he’s slacking (anything but), its more like he’s the alien that Weezy always claims to be, only giving us what we can begin to understand… and even that’s constantly light years ahead of it’s time. If what he’s given us is what has been decided on by the labels as his most accessible, I can’t even begin to imagine the Cee-Lo records we haven’t heard.

Maybe its not the most envied of titles in Hip Hop, but he’s had the “rapper/singer” title on lock for a few healthy minutes. While his contributions as a Southern architect as a member of Goodie Mob always get mentioned by the new Southern artists (T.I. has given quite a few tips of his cap to Goodie Mob), it’s his oft overlooked solo career that really define his indefinable talent better than anything.

Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections was years ahead of its times and one of the most overlooked records in any genre. Lo has always had an arsenal of skills, and Perfect Imperfections is his initial attempt at translating that abundance of talent into an album that Hip Hop fans could listen to. Most importantly though, he remains uncompromising in his portrait of himself, and because of that, he presents one of the most musically daring and sprawling albums to come out in the past decade of Hip Hop. The problem with the crowd reception though is that Lo was painting with four dimensions while the rest of us were admiring artists who painted in three, a difference he addresses on “Big Ole Words (Damn),” “I am not like them at all and I can not pretend.” While Lo owns the album lyrically, the beats sound like jazz in outer space, and every sound seems to have a deeper meaning, like the first few saxophone squawks and the subsequent spacey synths on the opener “Bad Mutha” serving as Cee-Lo’s atmospheric entrance music, his stepping off of the UFO.

But if Perfect Imperfections is Cee-Lo’s descent to Earth, his follow up, Cee-Lo Green… is the Soul Machine, is his unveiling of his time machine, where he takes us back through time to an era where Soul music reigned supreme. Lo nails classic after classic and for the second album in a row, never fails to represent his artistic side accurately. This time around, along with the straightforward rap bangers “I’ll Be Around,” and “Childz Play,” (the latter featuring an out of control cameo by Ludacris), Lo displays his passion for singing straight from his soul on tracks like “The Art of Noise,” “All Day Love Affair” and the Premo laced “Evening News.” As if that weren’t enough, he shows us his considerable spoken word talent, with the magnificent “Sometimes” and the brutally honest “I Am Selling Soul.”

Perhaps what’s most impressive about Cee-Lo is that he never runs out of creative fuel. After he named the South “Dirty” with Goodie Mob, he reinvented himself with his solo career and when that didn’t spark the proper reaction, he blurred the lines of where Hip Hop music could go with last years Gnarls Barkley project. And throughout it all, he, like all the greatest MC’s, always finds a way to steal his guest spots. He’s thoughtful and honest on Outkast’s “Git Up Git Out,” candid and questioning on Speakerboxxx’s “Reset,” and those who need an example of a true show stealing guest spot need only study Lo’s contribution to Trick Daddy’s “In Da Wind” (he single handedly makes that song what it is).

Putting things in perspective, Lo has been behind a handful of classics: the first two Goodie Mob albums, his two solo albums, the Dungeon Family album (outside of Wu-Tang, one of my favorite posse albums) and the Gnarls Barkley album. That’s six classics, and yet the man never gets treated like the few others in Hip Hop behind that many great albums. Not that it matters to him though, he says it best himself on Soul Machine’s “Die Trying:”

“I know you don’t hate me/ just not sure if anyone appreciate me/ see I’ve been havin a hard time selling my albums lately/ In recent news the Source couldn’t find any microphones to rate me/ using words like extreme and alternative to equate me./ While its true I’m in a box with a view but you still want to gate me?/ I could be a pretty good thug but it wouldn’t compare to a great me.”

Well said Lo. Keep doing you, because even if it takes a drug-induced morning after and a can of pineapple juice to get on your level, it’s a worthwhile journey in the end.

Cee-Lo – Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections (2002)

Posted in GENERAL, STRAY SHOTS