Goodie Mob’s New Album is the Sound of Survival

A spread of J.R. Crickets wings and bottles of white wine were laid out on a table in the control room at Stankonia Studios in Atlanta on October 1. 

Between chews and sips, Rico Wade, Patrick “Sleepy” Brown and Ray Murray — the three members of Goodie Mob’s OG “Dungeon Family” production crew, Organized Noize Productions — casually roamed the room, zoning to the sounds of Goodie’s new album “Survival Kit,” which the they produced entirely. 

ONP’s three members made clear they hadn’t yet settled on album sequencing (the order in which the LP’s songs would play from beginning to end). Hell, they’d only very recently agreed which songs would actually make the final cut. 

The surprise new Goodie Mob album was always planned for a post-Election-Day release, and upon listening to the 15-track project, which will be released Friday, November 13, it’s easy to appreciate why. 

“This is a growth album,” says Khujo. “Not only for Goodie Mob, but for Organized Noize too.”

It’s a true statement, and one that any fan of the four-man Atlanta rap collective will appreciate, especially those who’ve been along for the entirety of their recording career. Their debut album was released 25 years ago on November 7, and since then the group has broken up, gotten back together, and released a number of projects that have kept the band and its brand alive. 

There have been ups and downs. After achieving instant-legend status in 1995 with Soul Food, still considered an all-time southern hip-hop classic, Goodie Mob was praised as a sort of counterpoint to OutKast, who as fellow Dungeon Family members were also produced almost entirely by Organized Noize at that point.

Yet after the debut album’s RIAA gold certification (500k units sold), and a great deal of excitement around Goodie’s sophomore release Still Standing, a lack of promotional support and strategic missteps caused by their recording company LaFace Records led to frustrations. 

This was during a period when LaFace president L.A. Reid was away from his duties because he was in an executive business program at Harvard, preparing to take over Arista Records, and his absence, and decisions made by interim LaFace leadership, led to Goodie Mob members feeling as though the famed Atlanta record company was stifling their potential.

[ED NOTE: As a former LaFace employee, I remember Big Gipp cursing out LaFace department heads in a summer 1998 label meeting when Still Standing’s sales didn’t exceed Soul Food’s.]

Still Standing also went gold, but by all accounts it should have done much better — after all, by the time Soul Food was released, OutKast’s 1994 debut Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik had already been certified platinum with a million units shipped in the U.S.

Goodie Mob released World Party in December 1999, in what appeared to be a blatant play for commercial success, starting with the single “Get Rich to This.” This third album also went gold, but back in the late 1990s expectations (and recording budgets) were much higher, causing the group’s effort to be seen as less than successful.

It’s ironic when you look at the music business today, and actual album sales rarely break 500k units. 

The group released several solo and breakaway projects after World Party, including Ceelo’s Gnarls Barkley collaborations with Danger Mouse, Big Gipp’s team-ups with Daz Dillinger of Tha Dogg Pound and Ali of The St. Lunatics, and Khujo and T-Mo uniting to form Lumberjacks, as well as releasing their own indie solo LPs. Still, everyone has always wanted the group to reunite. 

They did with the 2013 album Age Against the Machine, which leaned heavily into Ceelo’s spectral sonic ambitions familiar to Gnarls fans. But the sound didn’t exactly match what Soul Food and Still Standing fans expected, despite a lead single and video featuring Janelle Monae (which was dope). 

Now they’re back with a project that sounds like it’s trying to be nothing more than who Ceelo, T-Mo, Big Gipp and Khujo have become: revered pioneering figures in Atlanta rap history who are still loved, appreciated and viable as musical artists. 

“You can’t duplicate perfection, period,” Khujo continues. “You can’t redo the Soul Food album. You can’t do Still Standing or World Party or any of those. All you can rely on is your experience, and pay close attention to what’s going on and not be alienated.”

Releasing Survival Kit right now isn’t just noteworthy because it’ll be a Friday the 13th, or because it’s in line with their 25th anniversary. Coming just after Donald Trump was defeated in the presidential race, the album may not be “soul food” but it is definitely a palate cleanser for those looking for spiritual nourishment and continued brain-feeding.

“There’s a great quote from Frederick Frederick Douglas that says, ‘An educated man is not fit to be a slave,’” says Ceelo. “Ignorance is, and has been, our greatest adversity and most effective enemy.

“I do say that information is the only equality we should ever aspire for. It is that elemental intangibility. Once you are in the know, that is the equilibrium.”

There’s plenty to unpack in Goodie Mob’s Survival Kit. Mental health is addressed in the radio-friendly uptempo cut “Me Tyme,” while aggression is prescribed in the lead single “Frontline,” as well as the Chuck-D-assisted “Are You Ready,” which continues Goodie Mob tradition of inviting paranoid minds to question everything.  

Khujo says with so many of today’s younger generation of rappers posing with “stack phones” and bragging about money, he’s curious to know if they’re prepared for possible reckoning with the harsh realities of adulthood in 2020. 

“Are you ready for what else is going on? Are you ready for who going to be president? Are you ready to pull your pants up and start being a man — a Black man? You ready to be a real Black woman and stop selling yourself short?”

The likely answer may be no, but one thing everyone will say they were ready and thankful for is the Dungeon Family continuing to create together. Yes, both members of OutKast are present on Survival Kit, with Big Boi jumping in on “Prey 4 Da Sheep, and Andre 3000 closing out the funk-bouncing track “No Cigar.” 

Perhaps the track that stands out most on Survival Kit is “Off-Road,” which finds Goodie Mob trading sing-songy, dramatically southern-accented raps over a semi-country-western vibe that’s perfect for those of us who’re still fishing for our fish and riding ATVs through the backwoods of the American South. 

Listening to the lyrics, you get the idea that it’s actually about hunting down intolerant rednecks, but the melody and harmonies of Ceelo’s vocals on the hook are so sweet that all you want to do is go sit down by a riverside with a harmonica, a sandwich, a blunt and maybe a bottle or three of moonshine. 

All in all, Survival Kit is a sign of life from Goodie Mob, which we can all share in and celebrate together, having made it this far through one of the most mentally and spiritually taxing years in the history of our country.

Sometimes all you need is to hear from great men in your community to let you know you’re still alive and still have time to enjoy the days ahead.

Survival Kit also features interludes from Dungeon Family affiliate Big Rube and 85 South Show’s DC Young Fly.

GET THE ALBUM HERE.