From the ATL to the LEX: Goodie Mob brings its hip hop to town

A lot has changed about the Atlanta hip-hop scene since the Goodie Mob came onto the city’s scene and helped effectively spark it in the early-to-mid ‘90s, but the main change is how the music seems to have essentially become borderless and boundaryless.

“Now, you go to New York and you hear Atlanta music on the radio and you go to L.A. and you hear Atlanta music on the radio,” said founding Goodie Mob member and MC Big Gipp. “That never happened when I came into the business.”

You could make a very strong argument that the dominance of Atlanta hip-hop in popular culture can be traced back when the members of Goodie Mob — Big Gipp, Cee-Lo Green, T-Mo and Khujo — came together with other Atlanta-based hip-hop artists and producers (most notably Grammy Award-winning duo Outkast) to form the collective that later became known as The Dungeon Family.

Its 1995 debut album “Soul Food” was produced by the production trio known as Organized Noize, which later went on to produce hits for Outkast and R&B girl group TLC, among others.

Goodie Mob’s emphasis on organic beats and R&B/soul-indebted instrumentation and samples, along with its frequently socially conscious approach to its lyrics projected unabashedly through southern accents, reverberated in many acts that followed from Atlanta and other southern hip-hop hotbeds.

In fact, if you have ever referred to the southern U.S. as the “Dirty South,” you can probably thank Goodie Mob for that. But Gipp said the lyrical content of Goodie Mob was equally meant to start a party and distill lessons that anyone can grasp.

“The things we talked about on those Goodie Mob albums, it definitely sunk into the listeners,” he said. “We are from the city of Dr. (Martin Luther) King. We didn’t just do music. Our music has always had a message.”

The group never attained the commercial success of their Dungeon Family peers and off-shoots on its debut album or follow-ups like 1998’s “Still Standing” and 1999’s “World Party.” In fact, the group’s only No. 1-charting single “Cell Therapy,” was banned from MTV due to its lyrical content about a dystopian future for blacks filled with drug use, gangs, incarceration and hypocrisy.

But Gipp said his group’s determination to stick to its guns regarding creativity and authenticity helped lay the groundwork for his home city’s hip-hop scene to rise to prominence.

“Everybody that comes from Atlanta has this certain knack that if you give them an inch, they would take a foot,” he said. “You’ve got to understand that if we didn’t fight that fight, I don’t think Atlanta would be on top right now.”

While Goodie Mob may have never spent time in the upper echelon of popular music, group member Ceelo Green is another story. The dual-threat MC and soul singer eventually broke off to pursue his own creative endeavors and most notably found commercial success through Gnarls Barkley, his collaboration with producer Danger Mouse that produced the worldwide 2006 smash “Crazy,” and the single “Forget You” (better known by another explicit title) off his 2010 solo album “The Ladykiller.”

Green would later go on to do everything from be a guest judge on NBC’s hit singing competition “The Voice” to landing various endorsement deals and his own short-lived sitcom on TBS. If you ask Gipp, he knew something like this would happen. He knew the group had a “secret weapon” from the time he saw him rap-battling Khujo in his friend’s driveway and he started singing.

He also knew that Ceelo would forget where he came from, best evidenced when he rejoined the group at the near-height of his fame to release the 2013 album “Age Against The Machines.”

“He’s one of the ones that got the big heart,” Gipp said. “That has everything to do with where we from, bruh.”

Goodie Mob has been reunited and touring since last year and Gipp, along with his fellow group members, are energized both for the moment and what lies ahead. He said the group is currently working on new music, reconvening with some of the live players from previous Goodie Mob records at Outkast’s Stankonia Studios in Atlanta.

He said audiences in Lexington may hear its upcoming new single and other fresh tracks mixed in with Goodie Mob classics when the group comes to perform at Manchester Music Hall. He said you may end up hearing some rock and “a little church,” along with their notable signature style that resonates with hip-hop purists with no backing tracks or Autotune.

In other words, crowds get to see and hear the “ATL” in a live setting courtesy of a quartet of true originals that helped put it on the map.

“We just feel like this: We ain’t dead and we damn sure ain’t out of practice. Let’s just do what we do,” Gipp said. “We going to do everything you expect Goodie Mob to do.”

If you go

Goodie Mob

When: 7 p.m., Jan. 27

Tickets: $27 advance, $32 day of show, $55 VIP Ages 18 and older.

Where: Manchester Music Hall 899 Manchester St.

More info: 859-230-5365 or Manchestermusichall.com

This story was originally published January 24, 2019 at 9:05 AM.