Nappy Roots

By 2002, hip hop had already been a cultural phenomenon for the better part of a decade and a half; however, with some exceptions the east and west coasts still had the monopoly on producing the most commercially succesful and critically acclaimed examples of the genre. This was beginning to change with the rise of game changing groups like Outkast and the Goodie Mob but this was the year that one of the first groups to truly rock the boat in favour of the south came really arrived.

And all it took were six students and a record shop. Nappy Roots began with six attendees of the Western Kentucky University. Kentucky natives Skinny DeVille, B. Stille, Ron Clutch, and Big V, along with expats R. Prophet (from Oakland, California) and Fish Scales (Milledgeville, Georgia). The group came together in 1995 out of a shared love of music, in the next three years they built up a devout local following, using ET’s Music, a local record shop that doubled as a production studio, as a base of operations.

In 1998 they released their debut album “Country Fried Cess” independently. It was a very big deal in their home town, enough for Atlantic Records to investigate and later sign them the following year. The group took their time with their debut major label effort, and the album, "Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz", wouldn’t be released until 2002. However, the care, effort, and attention to detail put into making the record would pay off handsomely.

Buoyed by the hit singles "Headz Up", "Awnaw", and "Po' Folks", “Watermelon, Chicken and Gritz” would be certified multi-platinum, and made the group one of the biggest names in hip hop for the whole of 2002. For reference, 2002 was also the year that Eminem’s “The Eminem Show” and Jay Z’s The Blueprint 2” came out, so that in and of itself proved that Nappy Roots were no flash in the pan. Quick to strike while the iron was hot, their follow up “Wooden Leather” came out the following year and was even more critically acclaimed, with some of the records production work coming from the iconic Lil’ Jon and some no-hoper by the name of Kanye West.

However the group’s artistic streak wasn’t going to leave them for long and Nappy Roots left Atlantic to start their own label. Their first independently released album came in the form of 2007’s “Innerstate Music” an album that they called a taster for the following year’s “The Humdinger”. This was another album to gain considerable critical acclaim and was a top ten hit on the Billboard rap charts. Since then the group has seen Big V and R. Prophet leave to start solo careers but the band are still creating music that’s as fun as it is intelligent and shot through with integrity. They’re truly unique talents, ones that make Hip-Hop as a whole a more interesting, vital place with their very presence.