Maybe I’m overguessing the dissolution of the Mob. One of these tracks is called “Superfriends”. And it remains to be seen if the two tracks on Livin’ Life as Lumberjacks that feature Big Gipp (the other remaining Goodie, who may or may not still be a member, because he did attempt a debut as a solo artist… and unlike with Cee-Lo, the world said to Gipp: yawnsville) will be remembered by history as the last Goodie Mob tracks in effect, the parting shots at holding on to their fraternity, just as the bonds of the Mob dwindle to a few branches with a lot of stumps in the landscape. They recast themselves as a duo… presented by the trio that used to be a quartet (way back when Cee-Lo still sang with them to pay for his helium habit - doing well on his own, thanks very much). Yes, all that remain for this recording are T-Mo and Khujo, the original founders of the Goodie Mob, but they’re called the Lumberjacks. It’s a positive move in the right direction for Goodie Mob. Other than as a reason to show Khujo and T-Mo on the cover with huge oily chainsaws in a grimey deforestation scene, the Lumberjacks pseudonym doesn’t hide the fact that Goodie Mob is now down to two, and the rest, in their eyes, is clearly lumber. It’s a positive step to be down to half the original cast and compelled to change the name of the group.

They act as though this isn’t the story of a mutiny, no, this is the story of the final two rappers still standing. So it is for the Goodie Mob, who started with four rappers and are now down to two on their latest record.

And somehow the rapper makes it sounds like, in the end, it’s all good. Whatever it is for rappers: success, women troubles, drug addiction, gambling problems, greed, avarice, beef, court cases, car payments, label changes, clothing trends, babies, and even failure - it’s theirs. Rappers find the positive in everything that has ever happened to them. They have positive attitudes, and the stories of raising themselves up from poverty are always remarkable as stories of self-preservation and self-confidence.

The goodie mob