The idea that Cee Lo was head and shoulders, as a rapper, above everyone else in Goodie needs serious debunking. He was just the most straightforward.

Thought Process- Gipp's verse in it's quiet honesty is the antithesis of most political/fuck the police verses of that era.

Got me by the loose of my pants/ Got me on the curb and the traffic passes by/ No questions/ I said nothing/ Looking for the mutant to be bucking the law?/ Naw man, Gipp showed em my shit, closed my mouth, then I dipped/ Seems to me a G is a person who understands the plan/ Can't make no moves when you in the hands of the man... the whole verse is great. But that right there encompasses the helplessness of being a black man being harassed by the cops. Andre has the best verse on the song, but let's not act like Big Boi was on this level on Southernplayalistic.

Fighting- Yeah, I love Cee Lo's accapella shit at the end but is it that Khujo's preceding verse is just too complex or esoteric for anyone to appreciate? In my opinion, that is one of the most vivid verses I have ever heard, the frustration jumps out of the speakers, the imagery puts you right in the passenger seat of his car.

Guess Who- One of the best rap songs about mothers, if not the best. Instead of sugary sweet platitudes, all of them really deliver different visions of their relationships with their mothers. All while eschewing cliches that are so common in this type of song (if anyone does give resort to them it's Cee Lo, but I love his verse too).

But now that I am giving some examples, I have to say "Soul Food" is an all-encompassing piece of art. It's hard to chop it up into it's individual parts because at the end of the day this album is special because of it's intangibles:

The seamless blending of the street, the spiritual and straight up Public Enemy-esque political speech and resistance.

The understated production that nonetheless sets the table for the lyrics but never fails to complement.

Organized Noize killed this album, but they did so quietly, soulful but stripped down and raw as fuck.

The only rapper in Goodie Mob that Big Boi was better than in 1995 was maybe T-Mo. I mean...Big Boi could barely stay on topic for Git Up, Git Out on his own album in 95. Cee Lo and Gipp crushed him on that fam, I mean, come on, Gipp bodied him on that.

I'm not trying to turn this into a post downing Big Boi, who I love or Cee Lo, who was the most talented member of Goodie Mob by a decent margin. I just want people to stop shitting on Khujo and Gipp because they were really good rappers who also had the courage to do jump out of the box and challenge the status quo on all sorts of levels. I honestly think Gipp is a far more thought provoking MC than anyone in DF except Andre.