Kentucky hip-hop group strives to keep it nappy
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 31, 2002 9:00 p.m.
By Michelle V. Gonzales
Daily Bruin Contributor
Don’t even try to walk across Sunset with ice and
Escalade. Take a trip to the South and reclaim some roots. Some
Nappy Roots.
Monday night the Key Club on Sunset launches the “WB on
Tour,” a free event with WB talent taking the stage with
their own bands along with rock band Course of Nature and Southern
hip-hop act Nappy Roots. The touring M.C. is Jamie Kennedy from the
WB show “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment.”
Kentucky hip-hop heads Nappy Roots intend to bring a different
flavor of music to the mainstream mix. The group’s album,
“Watermelon, Chicken, and Gritz” was released in
February and was often compared to other left-of-center Southern
hip-hop acts like OutKast and Bubba Sparxxx.
Hailing from the South, the Big V., R. Prophet, Skinny Deville,
Ron Clutch, Scales, and B. Stille met together at Western Kentucky
University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
“None of us (had ever) met until we got to school,”
said Clutch. “We’d end up free-styling at the parties;
it was always us that would end up gravitating to each
other.”
Being in college shaped the six young men that would soon become
Nappy Roots.
“The whole experience was a challenge, balancing school,
music and life,” said Clutch. “It was really a test.
(College) was showing how life would be. The biggest challenge was
not giving up. It was a chance to be independent.”
But what really sets aside this group from the others is their
motto of nappiness.
“Nappy is equivalent to real,” said Clutch from his
hotel room phone on Sunset Boulevard. “We’re all about
life. We focus on just being yourself, not breaking yourself to
being someone you’re not.”
From the group’s perspective, nappy is based on the
elements of being pure and natural, in addition to being raw and
untamed. Their music incorporates everything from Southern music
elements of gospel organ to guitar syncopated beats to speaking the
truth on day-to-day living in the south. The song
“Ballin’ on a Budget” talks about flossing
what’s available got on limited funds. Other tracks such as
“Po’ Folk” paint pictures of hard times, and
“Dime, Quarter, Nickel, Penny” uses statistical lyrics
like “Everybody loves money to death and only three percent
controls America’s wealth.” The group’s
collective college education has put a social awareness to life in
their music.
“It’s about keeping it real, staying focused,
enjoying and appreciating the things in life,” said
Clutch.
Other root-inspired artists that have influenced Nappy Roots
were funk artists like Africa Bambaataa, among others, and also
early Arrested Development. According to Clutch, the group will
change the course of mainstream music, bringing it back to where it
started.
“I see the game as coming back around, coming back to its
roots,” said Clutch. “It talked about your “˜hood;
it wasn’t materialism, it was pure. The game was real
pure.”
The main target group for the tour is college cities like Los
Angeles, Tucson, and Las Vegas, which is fitting for a rap group
filled with degree holders; they even have some words of wisdom for
current students.
“Take advantage of all the resources, definitely use all
the resources,” said Clutch. “Ain’t anybody
telling you you gotta do this or that.”
The college cities that the tour will visit may not seem united
in their core musical interests, but Nappy Roots looks forward to
accepting the challenge of sharing its experiences with new
audiences.
“Nappy is always up for the challenge, our crowd is real
diverse, coming out of college, it was always just a mix of
people,” said Clutch. “We’re trying to bring a
new standard to music. We want to spread the word.”
Keep it nappy.
