At the end off Thomas "Cee-Lo Green" Callaway's astounding second album, a gobsmacked confederate splutters, "Shit, Lo, is there anything you don't do?" There's a gurgling chuckle as our hero answers, "F--- around."
He's not wrong. On this brilliant record Cee-Lo raps, sings, testifies and hollers; he provides insight, uplift and superlative entertainment one minute, the next he's plunged into pits of self-doubt, lashing out, barely keeping his anger in check. Throughout this mesmerising hour, he asks countless questions of his music, his peers, his fans and himself, yet after repeated listens you realise he's answered all of them fully and succinctly elsewhere. Melding hip hop, funk, soul and pop without barely seeming to break a sweat, he is a renaissance man of urban music. "I'll probably be everything, eventually," he shrugs on "I Am Selling Soul", and there's no reason to demur.
Cee-Lo hasn't dropped, fully formed, out of nowhere. An estranged member of Goodie Mob, mate of OutKast and member of their Dungeon Family, he's part of Atlanta rap royalty. The son of preacher parents, he released his solo debut, "Cee-Lo Green And His Perfect Imperfections", in 2002, a record every bit as ambitious as this follow-up but not quite as cannily constructed. He addresses that earlier record's comparative lack of commercial vindication on the brilliant closer, "Die Trying", lamenting the conservatism of rap magazines that couldn't deal with someone unwilling to make generic music. "The Source couldn't find any microphones to rate me," he muses, "using words like 'extreme' and 'alternative' to equate me/Which is true: I'm in a box with a few, but you still wanna hate me?/I could be a pretty good thug, but it wouldn't compare to a great me."
This time, Cee-Lo makes no mistakes. He's taken all the idiosyncrasies that made "…Imperfections" such a furiously compelling listen, and worked even harder to build catchy, commercial songs around them. He's drafted in outside help of the highest calibre, but more than rises to the challenge. DJ Premier, Timbaland and Jazzie Pha all contribute, but they add to the whole rather than append it. Two tracks are produced by the Neptunes and feature Pharrell on backing vocals and choruses, but Cee-Lo stamps his forceful personality on them, so you almost forget whose beats you're hearing.
"Let's Stay Together" is one of them, a superlative summation of Callaway's myriad influences, a love song with an Al Green feel boasting a hook nicked shamelessly from Oasis' "Live Forever". "All Day Love Affair" is an enraptured hymn to his wife. "Glockappella", a blistering dis track probably aimed at remaining Goodie Mob members (their first post-Cee-Lo album, due in June, is called "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show") is delivered with something approaching an apology, though it's barbed and tipped with acid. "I used my head and fed niggas something nutritious," he seethes, "so you will appreciate what a sacrifice this is". The lyric is accompanied by a slouching, low-slung funk beat that incorporates the sound of a spent cartridge hitting the floor as a percussive element.
This is clearly the record that should take Cee-Lo into a similar orbit to his Stankonian mates, being a single-disc equal of "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below". Yet signs are that the mainstream is still eluding him: five weeks after its US release, there's no sign of it in the Billboard Hot 100, and the sales of "…Imperfections" – a comparatively paltry 280,000 – are yet to be overtaken. This isn't an album that yields its secrets easily, so perhaps the word-of-mouth recommendations will be slower to accumulate, as early buyers take their time getting to grips with Cee-Lo's steez. But even if it only sold 14 copies, it would still be the best record of the year.
