LA County Fair 2024: An interview with CeeLo Green

Photo courtesy of Primary Wave

Atlanta singer CeeLo Green began his career in the early ‘90s with hip hop group Goodie Mob. He teamed up with Danger Mouse for Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 debut album St. Elsewhere and “Crazy” was an international top 10 hit. Green’s third solo release The Lady Killer spawned multi-platinum No. 2 pop hit “F-You” four years later.

Since then, he has won five Grammys, logged time as a coach on NBC’s “The Voice,” performed at the 2012 Super Bowl with Madonna, covered Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting” for the “Kung Fu Panda” soundtrack, and voiced a character in the Disney+ animated series “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.”

Green’s multiple guest appearance/collaboration credits including Smokey Robinson, Santana, Rod Stewart, TLC, Bruno Mars, Eminem, Outkast, The Pussycat Dolls, and others. We caught up with him during a phone interview from Las Vegas. The interview has been edited for clarity.

Q: What can your fans look forward to during your Pomona show?

A: We always try to leave a little room for improvisation. I will do all the favorites and a few added surprises here and there just to keep it interesting. I don’t think any two cities, audiences, or shows should be exactly the same.

Q: Looking at your recent Casino Morongo show setlist, I noticed you did a wide range of covers. It looked fun.

A: Let me give you some context on that. For the last few years, I've been doing billings as a DJ set. I’m not actually, physically DJ-ing, but what I am doing is playing a curated set list from past and present that’s extending from my own personal and particular taste. And being of age, I want to be the bridge between generations, and bring people together.

It's a renaissance of things that I make available throughout the course of the show. Songs like Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ and Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.’ For me, that’s the best music and era ever. I don’t know if music is ever going to get better, so therefore it makes me a little sad. But it’s bittersweet. I had the life experience and opportunity to really live those songs. So even if at the very least I’m only amusing myself by playing it, I feel like I have to.

Q: Have you shared a stage before with TLC and Montel Jordan? You have a past with them appearing on their records.

A: Well, I’ve never done a song with Montel Jordan, but I definitely have had a lifetime with the ladies from TLC. Rest in peace to Left Eye, who was a really good friend of mine, like a sister. People may or may not know, but I sang background vocals on ‘Waterfalls,’ which was one of their biggest.

Q: Maybe they’ll invite you on the stage to do that in Pomona. You never know.

A: I would love to, and since we are going to Pomona, I gotta shout out to the big homeboy, the OG Sugar Free [a popular local rapper].

Q: When you perform fair gigs, do you ever take time out to partake in any of the festivities, maybe grab a deep-fried delicacy or sneak a ride on the Ferris wheel?

A: No deep-fried Oreos for me. I am watching my figure. I might get on some bumper cars and have a little fun.

Q: “Serious,” one of your recent singles as The Band Pink with Jack Splash, is an infectious jam reminiscent of Morris Day and the Time, with some Zapp and Prince mixed in there too. Were they an influence?

A: Those are my all-time favorites. Anything I can do with a hint of that nostalgia and a head nod was a tip of the hat to those artists, rest in peace. I feel like I take on their spirits, and I’m here to be a vessel for that whole thing. I’m old enough to do it and appreciate it.

Q: The first line of that song: "Does anybody up here remember how good music is supposed to make you feel" really lays it on the line. Do you think it's harder to find authentic soul in modern R&B music than it was back in the ‘70s and ‘80s?

A: It’s always about an emotion, but to me, some of it, even our more successful songs currently have to do with more of a somber or sedated emotion. To me, it’s not about the innocence or the purity of just fun music. Or as Prince used to say: ‘dance, music, sex, romance.’

Q: Maybe modern technology makes everything sound too perfect. 

A: It’s not supposed to be perfect. Not true art. These are also the interpretive arts. Certain people's filtering systems are just different, so it’s going to vary. You have to give it your best shot. I just persist in doing the things that I love and that make me feel alive, and it makes it enjoyable. It’s just the energy that’s kept me young and kept me going for all these years. I’ve been jumping around 30 years now.

Q: It was cool to see the Andy Warhol quote at the end of the “Serious” video: “Art is anything you can get away with.” Is that sort of an unofficial mantra of your career?

A: Absolutely. Because all things are in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes the industry, the state of it, can’t see it for what it is anymore because everything is about the selling point. It’s more about marketing and promotion and more or less rigging the game so you can win. But those are not the marks of a true champion. 

Q: Was that video fun to shoot? You were roaming about the town in a silver cape...

A: Yes, it was super fun. I think people are accustomed to me just being my wild and free, unpredictable, but overwhelmingly entertaining self, and I don't want to let people down. It is my life’s work to be yourself on purpose. I think that’s the best way to encourage others to be themselves. Because we all should be creators in one capacity or another. No one is here to just recede. Life is about giving as well. 

Q: You’ve had an eclectic music career. Does branching out into rock, pop, and country at times help keep everything artistically fresh for you?

A: It does, and my scope is broadened. I can see the spectrum from one end to the other. It’s definitely about walking the line, or going to what you gravitate toward, being pulled in that direction.

Art is really about obedience, having an inclination as far as your internal dialogue and how you determine what it is that you feel needs to be done. The thing is actually alive, and you just received the signal.

Q: Your excellent 2020 solo album, CeeLo Green is Thomas Calloway [the artist’s real name] was produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and ventured into old school R&B territory. How did fans react to the chill vibe?  

A: Sometimes it disappoints me because I don’t know if I can surprise people anymore. I don’t like that feeling. I’m always on the cutting edge of trying to find new and innovative ways to connect and contribute. Then selfishly, I do at some point, want to be responsible for probably one of the most layered, textured, diverse careers and catalogs that anybody has ever seen. That is a driving point for me.

Q: Were you satisfied with how that album displayed a heightened soulfulness than you have expressed in the past?

A: Yes, of course. It was well-produced by a master, in my opinion, Dan Auerbach. He’s a really great down-to-earth guy - sensible, smart, successful - but very humble and grounded, well rounded. He did a great job and I give him all of his flowers. 

Q: Thinking back to the success of Gnarls Barkley's “Crazy” - Were you surprised at how that song blew up on the charts? Did you have an inkling it was going to strike such a chord when you recorded it?

A: I didn’t know, and I don’t even necessarily want to know. I never want to go into a situation of where I’m pretentious or too overly confident. Because even a loss is a lesson. I’ve always trafficked it in a way of where I don’t mind the odds of a win, lose or draw. I’m a fighter and I’m willing to fight for it. But I do a great deal after having some success.

Q: There’s a new Gnarls Barkley album arriving this year. Can you provide any hints about it?

A: I used to be very understated when speaking about Gnarls, but I’m taking a new approach. I’m going over the top, saying immodestly but graciously, this may be the sonic shift in culture we all have been waiting for. A vibration is coming through me. I’m grateful to be instrumental in an act of something supernatural.

CeeLo Green appears at Fairplex in Pomona on May 4 with Montell Jordan and TLC. All concert tickets include admission to the Fair. To purchase and for more info, go to lacountyfair.com/concerts.

A version of my interview originally appeared in SoCal Newsgroup (SCNG) papers in print and online.