- 7 months ago
Atlanta royalty joined The Midday Show as CeeLo Green sat down with Andy and Randy to talk about the massive news: Gnarls Barkley is back with a new album simply titled "Atlanta." CeeLo gushed on his love for the city, describing the project as a love letter to the place that helped make him. He and Danger Mouse are leaning into an antique sound, music that feels like it's always been there, blending that classic Atlanta soul with the experimental edge only Gnarls Barkley can provide.
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00:01How you doing, Mr. Green?
00:02Like we said, CeeLo Green was going to come in at some point during the first segment,
00:05and we'll get back to all that because, you know,
00:08those conversations can happen throughout the next three hours and the next three months.
00:12Yes.
00:13As they will.
00:13Yes.
00:14We're going to talk a lot about Tua between now and when the Falcons play.
00:18But there's only so many times that you get a chance to have a conversation with CeeLo,
00:23who's in studio with us right now.
00:24Let's make sure that everything is working so we can talk to him
00:29and he can hear us and all that kind of stuff.
00:32How are you?
00:33I'm pretty good.
00:34Good day, gentlemen.
00:36Look good.
00:36Good day to you.
00:37Look good, man.
00:38Happy, healthy, alive and well, man.
00:40Is everything better than that?
00:43No.
00:44It's not.
00:44Everything else is a plus.
00:46I hear that, man.
00:47I didn't know we got you for a little while.
00:48We're a sports show, so we always got to ask you,
00:51how do you rank your Atlanta sports teams from your favorites?
00:56You know, from what I have observed and experienced, even for myself,
01:03I'm guilty of it, just like most Atlanteans, ATL-ians,
01:06we can be fair with the fans.
01:09Okay.
01:10You know what I'm saying?
01:14But it's endearing.
01:15You know what I mean?
01:16And win, lose, or draw, we're with our teams.
01:19We're with the Hawks.
01:20We're with the Falcons.
01:21You know what I'm saying?
01:22We're with the United.
01:23We just, we, we, we, we fought Atlanta.
01:26So it's still pro-Atlanta, but I was just giving you an honest account.
01:29Okay.
01:30Am I, am I accurate or do you see what I'm saying?
01:33I think I'm going to go with what you said.
01:35I call it, I just, I call it, some people say fair weather.
01:38I say discerning.
01:39For sure.
01:39That's right.
01:40We just, you know, there's a lot going on.
01:41And if you're going to require my time, energy, and money, then earn it.
01:47You know what I mean?
01:48I remember we were in Houston for the Super Bowl that year.
01:51And I was like, oh my God.
01:56I couldn't believe it.
01:58That scarred you?
01:59Yeah.
01:59For a long time.
02:00Still scarred?
02:01Yeah.
02:02But look, I couldn't, I couldn't, I didn't realize I was so emotionally attached to it.
02:09I mean, I was like, oh, it really hurt me, man.
02:11We walked out of there ashamed, dog.
02:17I listened very closely to the new album.
02:20And I know we want to talk to you about that, obviously.
02:23But correct me if I'm wrong.
02:24I don't know if you remember.
02:25Maybe you do.
02:26I only, I caught one sports reference.
02:27It was a spud web.
02:29I think you said dunking like spud web.
02:30That's right.
02:31I always, when I listen, I always pick up and you hear that kind of stuff.
02:35And that was, that's a cool one.
02:36That's a, that's a throwback Atlanta.
02:38You got good ears.
02:39Quick wit.
02:40What is, thank you.
02:41What is, or maybe he's the answer.
02:43Who's your, who's your all time favorite athlete in Atlanta sports?
02:48I think, oh man, you got, we're going all the way back to Stevie Barkaski and all the
02:55big white shoes.
02:59No favorite.
02:59Those, those are all iconic names.
03:01And something like, you know, and that's why I wanted to mention spud web because I guess
03:05I would liken my story to his underdog story.
03:09You know what I'm saying?
03:09You know what I mean?
03:10I was shorter.
03:11You know what I mean?
03:12You know what I mean?
03:14Maybe counted out or, you know, counted against, you know what I mean?
03:18And he showed up and competed, you know what I'm saying?
03:21Like remarkably competed and succeeded, you know what I'm saying?
03:24You know, and over some great obstacle, you know what I'm saying?
03:28You know what I mean?
03:29Like, and so, you know, no, his, his, his career and his story and contribution to Atlanta
03:35culture and sports culture at large, you know, is, is remarkable.
03:41You know what I'm saying?
03:41Like, you know what I'm saying?
03:42And so, so I'm going to say, I'm going to go for spud web since, since he's my current
03:46reference in the, in the music, I'm going to say, I want to represent with spud web.
03:50I take, I take spud web for 10.
03:53Works for me.
03:53I like that.
03:55Now you are obviously a busy man and everything like that.
03:58You have your people.
03:58Do you ever just sit back and like, you know what?
04:00I want to go to a game.
04:01I want to go to a sporting event.
04:02Or is it more or less they want, obviously they want, everybody wants you.
04:05I just say I'm CeeLo.
04:06But is it sometimes you just sit back at the house and just like, you know, I think I want
04:09to go to a Hawks game.
04:10I want to go to a Falcons game.
04:11Did that ever occur with you?
04:12Yeah, it does.
04:13And so I forget that we have those relationships.
04:17We got that love.
04:18You know what I mean?
04:19Like, and we have that luxury.
04:20So no, man.
04:21And then I'll see people who are not from Atlanta, you know what I'm saying?
04:24Like who are there way more often than I am.
04:26You know what I'm saying?
04:26Because partially it's by default because I wasn't living here for a while.
04:31But I've been back here for the last few years, living back and forth between here and
04:36Miami.
04:37So since I'm here, it makes me want to get out and be a part of the social fabric.
04:41You know what I mean?
04:42And like, again, I reconnect with that, you know?
04:44So yeah, I feel I do that all of the time.
04:46Atlanta legend CeeLo joining us in studio here on the Midday Show with Andy and Randy.
04:50Narls Barkley's new album is out.
04:52The title of the album is Atlanta.
04:54That's right.
04:54Why?
04:58Because Narls Barkley is like a freak of nature, if you will.
05:03But then again, so am I.
05:06But I'm a product of the environment.
05:08So like Atlanta is responsible for who I am and who I become.
05:12You know what I'm saying?
05:13And like, and of what, of which I represent to the world.
05:17You know what I'm saying?
05:17Like, you know, people always want to know what the inclination is or what the inspiration
05:20is.
05:21I'm like, man, you know, Atlanta, the hometown.
05:23I mean, like the place where miracles happen, the dreams come true.
05:26I mean, like you can do anything here.
05:27And we're very welcoming and we're very tolerant and we're very embracive.
05:31And I mean, like, and loving and generous and, you know, hospitable to everyone.
05:35You know what I mean?
05:35And it's many, many occurrences of which I can reference to prove that point.
05:41You know what I mean?
05:41But yeah, no.
05:43So, and, but with Narls Barkley, the success started in Europe.
05:49So when this record goes number one for the first time in history from digital downloads
05:55alone, it ends up getting a Guinness World Record.
05:57This is, I'm speaking about crazy from the debut album, Narls Barkley, St. Elsewhere.
06:03We ended up getting a record deal in Europe.
06:07So that was pretty much the base there.
06:09And people almost maybe thought that we were even a European group.
06:12People didn't even know that I was a real artist.
06:15They, you know, before it was called AI, it was mashup, right?
06:20And so a lot of the, well, one act in particular around that time who was doing it,
06:27and doing it well, was Moby.
06:29So you remember the song?
06:34So, you see, I can imitate that.
06:36That's how I learned how to sing, by imitation.
06:38You know what I'm saying?
06:38You feel me?
06:39But, so, Danger Mouse was a mixtape, you know, DJ, producer extraordinaire, and he had just
06:47put out a critically acclaimed mixtape called The Grey Album, which was a mashup of Jay-Z's
06:54Black Album and Beatles' White Album.
06:56I remember that.
06:56Right?
06:57Yeah.
06:57So, when Narnsparky came out, they thought it was another one of those hybrids of some
07:02old soul vocal, you know what I mean, like, and, you know, his tracking.
07:06And, you know, people didn't know it was even a real thing.
07:09So it probably would have came across like AI for that time.
07:13You know what I mean?
07:13Mm-hmm.
07:14Yeah.
07:14So, at first, people thought Narnsparky was an AI artist, but it was me.
07:18And it was like, old Logrein from Atlanta, Georgia.
07:21Actual intelligence.
07:22Actual intelligence.
07:22Not artificial intelligence.
07:23We go back so long with you, Dungeon Family.
07:25I'm talking about Soul Food, and they don't dance.
07:28That's my favorite song, because how you come in.
07:29Yeah.
07:31Oh, man.
07:31That's my favorite song.
07:33Guess what?
07:33That was like a little, I used to do stuff like that just to lead myself in, because during
07:37that old time, we were recording to two-inch tape.
07:40Right.
07:41And it wasn't no punching in and pauses.
07:44If you made a mistake, you had to run it back, all the way back, and play the whole song
07:48down until it gets to your part.
07:50Yeah.
07:50So that was just to clear my vocal.
07:51You know what I mean?
07:54But it was something that they wanted to edit out in the song, but it's like a little quirk
07:58of soul.
08:00It's like a...
08:01My friends accuse me of having what they've now nicknamed Soul Tourette.
08:08You can't help it.
08:10I can't.
08:10It just comes out.
08:11I sing to me and you, I'm at the fast food.
08:14Right.
08:15Can I get a Chick-fil-A?
08:18Number one deluxe with cheese, y'all.
08:22I have people laughing, and I'm pulling around to the window in this meeting.
08:25They're like, damn.
08:25All right.
08:26But no, that's funny that you even know to say that.
08:28I love that.
08:28But I got a quote, because those references right there, when you were in that mode right
08:33there and everything, hip-hop and all those different things, did you see Gnaw's in the
08:36future, or was it with something kind of like just, I don't want to say fell into, but
08:40you know, were you just working towards that, or was this like, you know what, let me try
08:43something different?
08:46No, it was quite the opposite.
08:47I wanted to sing first.
08:49Okay.
08:49You know, I knew that my songwriting was the one, how do you pronounce it, the penchant?
08:57You had a penchant for it?
08:58Yeah.
08:59So I knew my writing was interesting, even to myself, because everything feels ethereal
09:07and like an out-of-body experience, and I'm like, wow, this is a good song, comparatively
09:12speaking, and I wanted to sing first.
09:16So that's how, let's say, let's go back to Soul Food, the debut album for Goody Mom, you
09:21know, I want to be free.
09:23It's the intro to the album.
09:25So like, I kind of always wanted to sing, and I always wanted to contribute, you know,
09:31with harmony and melody to give rap music a well-roundedness, or at least our interpretation
09:37of music, Southern rap music.
09:39So it was always something live instrumentation-wise, or soul vocal, and let's say you have the music
09:45of Memphis, Atlanta, you know what I mean, like, and so on and so forth.
09:48So all of those elements were always included and welcomed in the Southern perspective of
09:53music.
09:53So, you know, I'm right at home, you know what I'm saying, obviously.
09:57So I always wanted to sing, and I think that, you know, maybe the messaging of Gnarles was
10:05probably being curated all throughout that time.
10:08So by the time I did it, you know, I really did my big one, because I was singing in
10:13a small
10:14kind of confined, which is just the hook of a song or something like that.
10:18And at one point, you know what I'm saying, like, I was the go-to guy for hooks, and I
10:21did
10:21hooks for everybody, you know what I mean?
10:23So shout-out to Trick Day, shout-out to Rick Ross, you know what I mean?
10:26Like, shout-out to Field Mob, you know what I mean?
10:29Like, you know, all these great acts and all these great guys, they're really represented
10:32for our side of things.
10:34I think the new album is going to do a lot of, you're going to feel a lot of different
10:38things when you listen to it, if you haven't listened to it yet.
10:41The song Pictures, I think, is the one that maybe most people have heard so far.
10:46Yeah, it's the first single for the new album.
10:48It feels really nostalgic to me, like, obviously you're kind of going back through memory lane.
10:52What are some things that you're nostalgic about as an artist?
10:56Sometimes when I get to rhyme, I think I lose the point sometimes, but I was beginning to
10:59say that we named it the album Atlanta because we both are from Atlanta, and then sometimes
11:06I think the way I've carried myself, the way that I've conducted myself professionally
11:10or creatively, you know what I mean, and my unique brand of success, I mean, like, you
11:17know, they don't think it's local to the city, it seems like it comes from somewhere else,
11:21but no, we're from Atlanta.
11:22So even Danger Mouse is from Atlanta, too, and we thought that that was a perfect way
11:27to lead off the campaign.
11:29It's a love letter, you know, like, to Atlanta, you know what I'm saying?
11:32And so it just, it's all of those friendly ghosts of nostalgia and times past, and even
11:39that is present in the aesthetic sonically, you know what I mean, and that's Danger Mouse's
11:46motif.
11:47You know, it sounds like music that's always been around, sounds like old music.
11:51It's like old, new music.
11:53It's crazy.
11:54So it's antique.
11:55Let me rephrase that.
11:56It's antique, you know what I mean, because the difference between old and antique is appreciation.
12:00You know what I mean?
12:02So we appreciate life, we appreciate the opportunity, we appreciate each other, and we love, love,
12:05love music mutually, you know what I'm saying?
12:07And so all of that is kind of vested into it.
12:10I love it.
12:11I love it.
12:11That was going to be my next question, too, because I know we've got to get you out of
12:13here.
12:13Is it like an open love letter to, is it an open letter to Atlanta?
12:16That's what I was going to say.
12:17Absolutely.
12:18You know what I mean?
12:18Like, from Atlanta to the world, you know what I mean?
12:21I think that they kind of, you know, that range of emotions, I think, you know, rap music,
12:27you know what I mean, respectfully, you know what I'm saying, can be restricted to, you
12:31know, maybe, you know, only a few topics, you know what I mean, like that you can rap
12:37about respectfully, you know what I mean, like, and maybe the rap audience only wants
12:41to hear, you know what I'm saying?
12:42So like, it's kind of like a little small gated community, it seems like sometimes, you
12:48know what I mean?
12:48But, you know, Nons Broccoli is about proving what's possible, you know, and it's about the
12:54verbiage that we use, so, you know, instead of saying impossible, you say I'm possible,
12:58you know what I mean?
12:59And so, I want, you know, the rap community, you know what I'm saying, like, to see one
13:04of their own branch out, you know, take that leap of faith and still land on my feet.
13:09That's what Nons Broccoli is about, to inspire those others who have it in them potentially,
13:15you know what I'm saying, like, they just kind of haven't seen something comparable
13:18succeed, you know what I'm saying?
13:19And so, it's very imperative that albums and art like this, you know what I mean, performs
13:26well, you know, and proves to be viable, because it will open up the optimism again in the artists
13:32themselves and the executives, you know what I'm saying, like, you know, so where they
13:35can start to identify with the up-and-coming artists who have other unique and interesting
13:41perspectives and things to say.
13:42It's just important that we be varied, you know what I'm saying, like, and diverse.
13:47I hope so.
13:48I love it.
13:49I hope so.
13:49I hope we hear more music like this in the future.
13:51That'd be great.
13:52I've always found your music very inspiring.
13:54We appreciate the time.
13:55We could sit here and talk to you forever, but we gotta let you go on about your day.
13:59We appreciate it.
14:00Thank you, guys.
14:00CeeLo Green, nice enough to hang out with us here in studio promoting the new Gnarls
14:04Barclay album, Atlanta.
14:05Listen to it, man.
14:07Serious.
14:07It is so good.
14:09From beginning to end, there's not a song that you're not going to love.
14:13Sports Radio 92.9 The Game.