Cee Lo Green Pays Tribute To “Robin Williams” On New Track
by MJ on Jul 22, 2015 • 7:56 am No CommentsCee Lo Green is one of the most talented cats in the game. He’s an above-average singer, songwriter, rapper and producer, and he’s maintained two decades of success without exactly selling out to the mainstream. Lo’s music has always been slightly left of center musically and (certainly) lyrically.
His public image has been tarnished a bit lately, what with some sexual abuse allegations that were settled out of court and a series of regrettable, bizarre tweets. After taking a short time out, Cee Lo has returned with a new single, provocatively entitled “Robin Williams”.
While the immediate worry might be that Cee Lo is capitalizing on the tragedy of the comedian’s suicide barely a year ago, the song actually contextualizes Williams’ death as part of a greater point: we’re all human, we all have troubles, and many of us (comedians most prominently) hide their pain behind jokes. Actually, if we’re listening beyond the punchlines, it becomes pretty clear that there’s a great deal of pain in the presentations of most comedians.
Perhaps Cee Lo, taking stock of his own image and his recent troubles, saw a few parallels. Or maybe he just wanted a little thematic consistency following his under-the-radar 2014 mixtape, TV In The Radio, on which he sang and rapped over a variety of classic television themes.
Check out the song below, or check out the amazing lyric video on Cee Lo’s website.