‘Time is right’: Goodie Mob reunites for show

Thomas “Cee-Lo” Callaway, Willie Edward “Khujo” Knighton Jr., Cameron “Big” Gipp and Robert “T-Mo” Barnett perform this weekend at Masquerade as the Goodie Mob that Atlanta knew, loved and missed. “We believe the time is right,” said Cee-Lo, who found mega-success in 2006 as half of Gnarls Barkley. “Nobody ever supported separatism among us. The greater good of what we contributed thus far far outweighs what grudges could have been held.”

Saturday’s show, titled Remember Atlanta, is a musical tour of the city’s hip-hop scene, said event producer Jerald McBride. Local poet Georgia Me will guide the audience through the musical styles of hood repping to crunk, right up to the big Goodie Mob finish.

“Goodie Mob for me provided substance in music,” said McBride, who first heard the group when he was a youngster in Detroit. “You can dance all you want and you can be crunk, but for the most part, Goodie has something to say. I think that is missing and there is a need for it.”

In the early ’90s, Goodie Mob was a group of young black men holed up in a basement studio penning lyrics about racism, power and self-respect. Along with the duo OutKast, producers Organized Noize and a cast of other characters, they were like a family — the Dungeon Family, as they were known.

When OutKast scored a deal with Atlanta-based LaFace records (now part of Zomba Music Group) to release its debut “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik,” Goodie members had cameos. Then they got their own gig.

“Soul Food” contained the hit single “Cell Therapy,” a song about government control, and launched the term “Dirty South,” the title of another song about drugs. The album went gold and Goodie Mob hit the road with like-minded acts such as the Fugees and De La Soul.

“We were fighting for the civil rights of Southern hip-hop at the time. We fought so [future artists] could have a little fun,” said Cee-Lo. “I feel like an elder. I’m older and wiser and experienced.”

But back then, growing pains pulled Goodie Mob apart. After two more gold albums, “Still Standing” in 1998 and “World Party” in 1999, Cee-Lo announced he was going solo.

It was good timing considering the criticism “World Party” garnered for being too commercial to be Goodie.

Cee-Lo went on to earn critical acclaim, if not commercial success, with solo albums in 2002 and 2004, the same year Goodie Mob released “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show.”

A monkey was Cee-Lo’s placeholder on the cover art and Cee-Lo was not pleased.

But two years later, when his Gnarls Barkley collaboration with Danger Mouse yielded the Grammy-winning hit “Crazy,” success had a soothing effect on the wounds of the past.

“Our issues were resolved with due process,” Cee-Lo said. “I know these guys. I know them very well, they are like my brothers and I’ve said on a few occasions to each of them my ability to forgive and forget the past.”

It was almost as if nothing had changed when on Monday night they all gathered at the studio to rehearse for their upcoming show.

A day later, they would board a bus for a tour of the haunts that put the good in Goodie: Benjamin Mays High School, Anthony Flanagan Memorial Recreation Center and, of course, the Dungeon.

Some things have surely changed, Cee-Lo said. Goodie Mob is now a group of 30-something men, but they still feel a responsibility to keep a certain brand of Southern hip-hop alive.

“To be on the outskirts looking back in ... you hope your intention to inspire and encourage individuals set a bar,” Cee-Lo said. “I feel like coming back; it is basically picking up where we left off.”

Concert preview

Goodie Mob Reunion Remember Atlanta

7 p.m. Saturday. $40. The Masquerade. 695 North Ave. N.E. 404-577-8178, www.masq.com, www.ticketmaster.com.