CeeLo Green

Imbued with a guttural falsetto, CeeLo Green wraps Southern hip-hop and R&B in magnanimous soul. Born Thomas DeCarlo Callaway-Burton in 1975, the Atlanta-raised artist began the first part of his musical career as part of Goodie Mob, a rap quartet that was also a member, along with Outkast, of famed rap collective Dungeon Family. The group's first two albums, Soul Food (1995) and Still Standing (1998), established a distinctly down-home brand of hip-hop, with Green's expressive raps and spurts of disembodied vocals infusing it with a folksy aura of wisdom. By 2002, Green started releasing solo albums, with projects like Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections, an LP featuring tightly wound raps, R&B, and kaleidoscopic funk. He teamed up with producer Danger Mouse to form Gnarls Barkley, a duo that released poignant, existential tracks like "Crazy" beginning with the 2006 album, St. Elsewhere. Whether singing, rapping, or operating somewhere in between, Green serves up powerful, soul-searching anthems with Southern grace and elegant power.