Riding Shotgun with Goodie Mob: A Photo Essay

Photos by Jason Reed

Mere days before the genre-defining Atlanta hip-hop act Goodie Mob reunited for its show at Atlanta's Masquerade Park, members of the press were invited to join Cee-Lo, Khujo, T-Mo and Big Gipp for a public transit bus tour of some of the iconic places in the group's history. Naturally, we were happy to take them up on the opportunity. It was a personal, intimate look at the different scenes that gave rise to one of the most important and influential groups in southern rap: real soul food, no table scraps.

The press assembled mid-morning at the West End MARTA station in southwest Atlanta and boarded a bus. Goodie Mob arrived shortly after to little fanfare other than the furious clicking of camera shutters. And emceeing was none other than Atlanta mixtape wizard DJ Drama, who had the good taste to play tour guide without shouting once.

It was a gray, windy day as we set out, one of those rare occasions where you're thankful for the high-octane heating system in the average MARTA bus. But after a few minutes of navigating the suburban backstreets of west Atlanta, we arrived at our first stop: Benjamin E. Mays High School (below), just outside the western side of the I-285 perimeter.

"This school used to be known as the school of the ass-kickers," Khujo laughed. Cee-Lo played with the brim of his wine-colored Red Sox hat and flashed a toothy grin before launching into anecdotes of minor-league drug-pushing: "We the reason why they got fences... I was a young soulja, s-o-u-l-j-a, out there."

"We solved things with our fists," T-Mo added gravely.

And to hear Big Gipp tell the story, the group's lifelong friendship was birthed in and around the halls of Benjamin E. Mays: "'88, '89, '90; we owned this school."

Of course, the doors eventually closed at the end of every school day, which was when they high-tailed it down to the Anthony Flanagan Memorial Rec Center (below), the next stop on our tour.

"Came over here and did a lotta drinkin...a lotta socializin," T-Mo reminisced, his eyes briefly looking off into the distance before snapping back to the cameras. The rec center was a home base for all kinds of well-organized craziness: sports, crabapple fights and high-school turf wars. "We brought a whole new spirit to the park," Cee-Lo nodded sagely. And it was here that they caught their first taste of live hip-hop shows, sparking the drive that would eventually form the Goodie Mob, and the creation of their recording-headquarters-cum-living-space: The Dungeon (below).

"We feel like this is our house," Khujo said of The Dungeon, the plantation-style manse where Goodie Mob often lived while recording their first three albums, forming the legendary Dungeon Family recording group in the process. "Coming back here is a bittersweet moment for us," Cee-Lo added. "But the hangers-on that come with money and fame...life changes when you reach certain heights."

Former owner Rico Wade has since sold the property after the dissolution of the Dungeon Family, and it's a palpable loss. "This was more than a recording studio, this was a refuge, a place for our families and kids," Cee-Lo said. "To lose it is a very emotional thing."

"This was a place for us to come together and grow as men, and grow as artists," T-Mo said, biting his bottom lip. "Still, a house ain't nothing but a house."

"Just for the record," Cee-Lo interjected, "we collectively got together and tried to purchase The Dungeon. It's still in litigation."

"More than entertainment, everything that happened here, we saw this as activism," he added. "It's missionary work, a fight for the civil rights of Southern hip-hop. We didn't bring you here to see a relic, or a shell. We brought you here to see a landmark."