Goodie Mob

Still Standing is sad, affirmative, visceral and (perhaps most of all) thoughtful. More obstinately bluesy than their near-classic debut, the album may be short on hummable tunes, but chock-full of navel-gazing introspection and socio-political meditations. Hook slinger extraordinaire Cee-Lo provides a soulful growl that lifts such tracks as "Fly Away," while emcees Khujo, T-Mo and Big Gipp deliver their usual complex narratives. The sludgy blues of Organized Noize's production only enhances the album's at a crossroads vibe.

The deep south could very well produce the next great wave of hip-hop. Why? Because
artists like OutKast, Wildliffe Society and Goodie Mob are grounded in two things sorely
lacking in rap nowadays: vision and sincerity. Still Standing, Goodie Mob's follow-up to their
acclaimed 1995 debut, Soul Food, is an ingenious concept album that digs its leathery hands
into the guts of the Atlanta area and comes out with an uncompromising depictio... More >

Their drawls as thick as their funk, they create a Dirty South at once more impenetrable and more inviting than Eightball's or Master P's--in feeling, one of hip hop's most neighborly spaces. Musically and verbally, they're too textural, but not even OutKast cultivates such territory with such care, and their Allmans homage/rip is almost as inspirational as this preachment: "I'm sick of lyin'/I'm sick of glorifyin' dyin'/I'm sick of not tryin'." (Grade - B+)