For the second installment of HipHopDX’s new video series, Soulful Sundays,DX Editor-In-Chief Trent Clark broke bread (cornbread, to be specific) with the inimitable CeeLo Green.
During the course of the meal, the Goodie Mob vet discussed a wide range of topics, including trap music, the Dungeon Family, his best feature and that infamous gold outfit he wore at the 2017 Grammy Awards.
Regarding that 2016 video appearing to show Green’s cell phone blowing up in his face and who exactly that Gnarly Davidson guy was, well …
“It’s an interesting story,” Green says. “The character was Gnarly Davidson, which was a play off of Harley Davidson, which was an extension off Gnarls Barkley. While me and Danger Mouse were discussing availabilities to start work on the new Gnarls Barkley album, which we’re doing now, I decided to amuse myself with a vignette project, a vanity project as they call it.
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“I said, ‘Well a play off of Harley Davidson with Gnarly Davidson just means I’m just going to ride alone on this one. How can I distinguish it?”
He continued, “I figure, alright how do people reinvent themselves? I put in the context of superhero — something traumatic happens and all of a sudden you get the power. So, we took real life events, with the Samsung situation … we took those events that were going on. Those were current events at the time.
“Initially, I was going to try to get a liquor sponsor and say, ‘Yo, Puff man, let me get a bottle of Ciroc.’ I’m going to sit it on the soundboard and tip it over, the shit going to blow up and I’m going to be Gnarly Davidson.”
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But all didn’t go according to plan and he said he had family members “petrified.”
“It was scary for a lot of people,” he said.
From Ice Cube to Louis Farrakhan, many people (including some in Green’s circle) were trying to figure out if he was really hurt. While he admitted the stunt led to a momentary “pause” on his musical output, he was happy there was at least one interesting development.
“Marvel Comics reached out to me,” he said. “They were interested in making Gnarly Davidson an authentic Marvel Comic character. It would have been historic.”
