Customer Reviews

Soul Food

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This CD will sound great 20 years from today. I has everything it takes to become a classic - great beats, great vocals, great sound, and creative lyrics. At least 7 tracks can compete for "the best track" title - Thought Process, Dirty South, Soul Food, I didn't ask to come, Call Therapy, The day After, and Guess Who. And the rest are excellent too...
Goodie Mob manage to sound hardcore without loosing the funk that is so appealling in the Atlanta scene. In my mind they even out-funk the great Outkast crew !
So, if I need a CD I know will make me feel great whenever it is played, this is certainly one. HIGHLY recommended.

Beats that bounce, Rap that flows, and these cats can sing too! The only guys that can rival Outkast for the south Goodie MOb meshes hard rapping verses, fast singing/rap verses (kinda like how bone thugs rap) with tight corus' and bumpin beats. Check out their singing skills on the first track "Free". Best tracks and classics for sure: "Cell therapy", "Soul Food" and "Live at the O.M.N.I". If you like their 2nd effort "Still standing" than you'll definitely this first album effort.

When you think of Southern rock, you think Lynyrd Skynyrd. When you think Southern blues, you think of Robert Johnson. When you think of Southern rap, you should think of Goodie MOb (yes, that "O" is supposed to be capitalized). Unfortunately, all too many people think about Juvenile and Master P. These guys are makin' money, but their lyrics have no substance. Sure "Back that a** up" is a clever catch phrase, but staying power? Nah. Them boys are gonna fall off any day now. The Goodie MOb proved to everyone that they were here to stay with their debut album, "Soul Food." This was the pinnacle of Organized Noize production with maybe the exception of Outkast's "ATLiens" album. The musicality evoked warm summer evenings, street corners and Sunday afternoon barbecues all at the same time, while Cee-Lo, Gipp, T-Mo and Khujo held down the lyrics with an iron fist, speaking eloquently and at some length (the songs on this mofo are loooong! I loved it!) about day-to-day life and just stayin' alive in general. What I enjoyed so much was the inclusion of spirituality in their lyrics, but not so much that it weighed down the record. Just enough to give a clear message that Goodie wasn't all about bangin' and slangin'. This is a fantastic record, and anyone who considers themselves true hip-hop fans should have it in their collection.

"Soul Food" is an amazing record by one of the South's best Hip Hop Groups..Goodie Mob. As a member of the Dungeon Family, they are familiar to the average hip-hop fans as "the guys on the outkast tracks"....However, these guys have a style all there own. I consider Goodie Mob to be very conscious rappers...which means that they're very real and talk about things that actually matter. They get beyond popular hip hop topics such as Cash, Women, Power, and Drugs...it's actual intelligent hip hop, which is rare these days. So, esspecially if you're into Down-South Rap with plenty of Country drawl...Pick up "Soul Food" From Goodie Mob. Also Check out "Still Standing".

As you can see, most ppl that reviewed this album hailed it as a classic. This album is nothing short of a classic. Altho it was heavinly inspired by their Southern roots, this album was loved by everyone across the country...This album got love from NYC, Philly, the midwest, California, etc. You get the point, its a universal classic....

Not much more I can really say about this album....All the beats are on point. If you like Outkasts' earlier work, you'll love this album. Organzied Noize handles the production which is damm near flawless. The Goodie Mob come hungry on this album...All their rhymes are on point and introspective...They truly put all their heart and soul into this one and came out a success...

This album truly is 'soul food'...Its great for the soul and if you're a fan of music in general...

Onstage at First Avenue Nightclub in Minneapolis, Goodie Mob's Cee-Lo Green lifts up his shirt to reveal a spare tire's worth of brown skin hanging over his jeans as, accompanied by a live band and with a big smile on his face, he rap croons the chorus of the group's hit single: "Come and get yo' soul food, well, well / Good old-fashioned soul food, all right.". Ten minutes later, the playful moment is long gone. After asking if there are and "revolutionaries of the mind" in the house, Cee-Lo delivers a blistering sermon disguised as an a cappella rap to the integrated all ages crowd: "Yeah, it's true, Uncle Sam wants you to be a devil too..... There's evil white folk just like there's evil black folk. All you soldiers, take responsibility for your own actions. White people know more about black history than you do; whose fault is that?..... We ain't natural born kilas, we are a spiritual people."

The members of Goodie Mob are part of a new generation of black musicians who make no distinction between hip hop and rhythm & blues in their music, a generation able to see the failed hopes of the civil rights movement and the gangsta backlash it generated through the same historical prism. The result is Soul Food, a debut that opens and closes with optimistic gospel based anthems sandwiched around tracks that range from "Guess Who", an unabashed homage to mothers, to "Live At The O.M.N.I.", a raging screed against black cops and other "devils" in the "system". Songs are rapped or sung as the occasion warrants, and are backed by a blend of sampled beats and live instrumentation. It's an ambitious hybrid with an organic cohesion stemming from the group's common roots: the four members of Goodie Mob (Cee-Lo, Khujo, Big Gipp, T-Mo) have known each other since most of them were attending classes at Benjamin Elijah High School in Atlanta.

After the show, T-Mo explains how the four Goodie Mob members often deliver distinctive but complementary raps within a single song: "We all grew up in the same `hood during the same time period, so we experienced maybe not the exact same thing, but most of the same type of vibe."

Cee-Lo: "We don't want to take credit; we have been led to speak, as a sign of the times. We needed a new form of music, a new expression. People are starting to deal with the whole music instead of just rap. Rap is like the paper on the outside of the box; we have to deal with the gift. Rhythm & blues just means rhythm and pain, rhythm and truth, rhythm and emotion. When there are divisions in [styles of] music there is stagnation."

Asked if growing up in Atlanta - the paragon of the New South with a growing tradition of black elected officials - has made a difference in their work, the group members guffaw in unison: "Naw, that's all an illusion, like everything else.". Big Gipp adds: "We deal with the real and that is that everybody is going through the same exact thing, the same pain. The object of Soul Food is to get people to think about change."

And to pay tribute along the way. Khujo states: "Soul Food is dedicated to our mommas. "Guess Who" is like the moral to everybody's whole story, because you don't get but one momma; she brought you in and you've got to treat her with the utmost. That's who fed us before we started eatin' McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and that's where soul food comes from, that recipe, the patience and the time that is invested." (- Britt Robson)

Long before No Limit attacked us with lackadaisical drum-programming, and Cee-Lo Green became a Closet Freak, there was Goodie Mob. Another rap group from the same circle as Outkast. Similar to Outkast, "Organized Noize" provides a smoothly performed hiphop beats, as opposed to samplers and drum machines. Big Boi and Andre make appearances on the first couple tracks of the album, Andre's lines in "Thought Process" are some of my favorite he has to date.

As far as the vocals, Goodie Mob has it all, from grungy dirty delivery of Big Gipp to the smooth drawl of Cee-Lo.

This is one of the few rap cds that has really impressed me from the minute I put it in.

If you liked the early Outkast albums such as ATLiens and Southerplayalistic... you really owe it to yourself to get this if you haven't already checked it out. Goodie Mob is definently one of the more overlooked southern-rap groups around.

This is a CD I'll fight you for. No one borrows it nor does it leave my house without me. All tracks have a message that's forced in your brain with every tight beat that is delivered. Dungeon Family hasn't till this day released a wack artist. Outkast deliverd the first punch and Goodie Mob followed up with sharp body blows with this one. Your completely late and lost if this one isn't in your collection by now.

oNe

Rapping over superb minimalist beats that grab your head and force it to nod, the Goodie Mo Crew put together one of the finest start to finish rap albums ever. There's no corny skits, no "I dont really mean what I say" braggadicio, and definitly no filler. The blend of Cee-lo's gospel singer inspired flow with the truly rugged ghetto raps of the rest of the mob make for one of the most sincere lyrical masterpieces of all time. Goodie stays true to their roots while at the same time rising above the poverty and despair to uplift and enlighten. They achieve this balance by displaying an uncanny urban vocab that is used to disect all they see around them with suprising clarity. Cee-lo laments on one track that the walls of his poor community, while to many are an attempt at safety, seem to him to only "keep crime in".

As I listened to this album over the years my favorite tracks would change over time until eventually every track became a gem. Two standouts that rise above the rest, though, are "Thought Process", and "Soul Food", although arguments can easily be made for virtually any song- these two hit me the first time I listened to the album. "Thought Process" has one of the funkiest, yet simplest beats I have ever heard, and ends with a jaw dropping acappella guest spot by Big Boi. "Soul Food" is Goodie Mob's version of the party track, minus the idiotic plugs for Bacardi or Crystal. The crew rap about what real people love- good home cooked meals, good herb, and good people. Cee-lo's rap in this song is one of the catchiest on the album- a sample: "Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, I'm too big for my jeans...why not these? fast food make me sick, them crackers think they slick, by makin' this [stuff] affordable, I thank the Lord that my voice was recordable."

One of the most underated albums of all time. Pure southern fried perfection, and still my favorite rap album after 7 years of play.

hip hop is the greatest musical artform out there...this aint a democracy, i aint askin yall to agree...these folks got messages, some of yall call them gospel rappers...whatever...they got soul, tho...they half spiritual, half religious and they gonna feed yall if ya lissen.
(but yall aint hearin me!)