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.