Great songs, Vol. 5: Goodie Mob's "Cell Therapy"

I had to add the video to this'n. You know how you love a song during your pre-adolescence because of something simple, like a hot beat or a wild video? "Cell Therapy" was that for me. I loved the video, loved the beat, loved the flows. But it wasn't until recently (check: yesterday), when I was doing my usual YouTube frenzy looking for old school hip-hop vids and noticed the heavy political tone of the song and video--I mean, on some for real New World Order shit.

AND THAT WAS JUST GOODIE MOB'S FIRST SINGLE!!!!

What I love most about this is that they weren't some Poindexter Negroes that could've been Carlton Banks' best friends, but some down home, Southern brothers dressed in Dickies and wife-beaters with grills. And that was their target in that song! They were saying, "Yo, I know you gotta stay on that grind, but if anything, don't become victims to the mind-controlling system that is our capitalistic society."

Prime example of that is during Big Gipp's part where he's in the convenient store and a woman in front of him buys a two-liter soda (sidebar: am I the only person in the world who grew up saying "cold drink" for sodas?), and that's acceptable, but when he goes to the counter with a newspaper, the attendant won't allow it, because that's the last thing America needs--an aware, knowledgeable black man.

Intelligence, my friends, comes in all kinds of packages.

And in the legendary words of Spike Lee a la Laurence Fishburn in School Daze: People...please wake up.

Let's get Texas and Ohio!