Diggin’ (those) roots: Rap group Nappy Roots doesn’t shy away from Southern start

Kirk Baird

Thursday, April 4, 2002 | 8:31 a.m.

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For Nappy Roots, it's a family thing.

Not that the six members of the hip-hop group that Spin magazine recently named one of six "Bands to Watch" are related.

The familial connection comes through a mutual love and respect of the same types of music, and from busting their humps to make that music together since the group's formative years at Western Kentucky College throughout the early and mid-'90s.

Back then Nappy Roots was an evolving group of friends whose musical reputation began from word of mouth from fellow college students.

The band has recently begun a lengthy odyssey to take its music beyond the blue grass of its Kentucky home, and to both coasts and places in between. Nappy Roots performs tonight at Hard Rock's The Joint.

"I travel with these guys, so I feel like I'm at home," B. Stille (real name Brian B. Scott) said recently, while relaxing in Los Angeles. "It goes back to six heads being better than one. If I was (touring) solo, I probably wouldn't be having as much fun."

B. Stille and the other five members of Nappy Roots Big V (Vito Tisdale), Skinny DeVille (William Hughes), Scales (Melvin Adams) R. Prophet (Kenneth Anthony) and Ron Clutch (Ronald C. Wilson) realized if they were to find success outside of Kentucky, they would have to hit the road.

The group's indie debut, "Country Fried Cess" in 1998, iced Nappy Roots' reputation at home, and its down-home, Southern-style mix of true-to-your-upbringing music and rhymes soon caught the attention of Atlantic Records.

Nappy Roots' major-label debut, the recently released "Watermelon, Chicken and Gritz," sits at No. 31 on the Billboard charts after only four weeks in release.

Its commercial success can best be attributed to strong word-of-mouth and critical plaudits from from the likes of USA Today, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, which said the album, "is a backyard party of layered, funky tunes ... (that) is fingerlickin' good and good for you," and the group "could be the best thing to come out of Kentucky since the colonel's chicken."

Then there was Spin magazine's glowing laudations, which, besides selecting Nappy Roots as a band on the rise, included a disc rating of eight out of a possible 10.

For B. Stille, the album accolades seems unreal.

"I just now read the Spin magazine thing ... eight out of 10, it was real big," he said. "It's surprising, but everybody's starting to catch on ... and (are) getting on the Nappy movement.

"This is what we had planned to do. We knew that people would feel our music across the world. We just had to make it happen. Obviously, coming from Kentucky ... it's hard to reach across the world."

But the group is trying just that with a label-created grassroots campaign that has the sextet on "The WB on Tour," along with labelmate Course of Nature, another in a wave of Creed-like bands.

And these dates are just the beginning, B. Stille assures. He talked of further touring for Nappy Roots, beyond the slate of shows that ends April 18 in Atlanta.

"(We're) going to stay focused on Nappy Roots and getting the album to do as well as we can," he said. "We're going to try and reach the people."

While Nappy Roots is living large at the moment (including an appearance earlier this week on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"), B. Stille insists the possible fame and fortune won't go to his head, nor anyone else in the group.

"Keep it Nappy," he called it, referring to both the group's moniker and its core belief of staying true to the members' roots, most of whom were born and raised in Kentucky.

This means not getting caught up in the cars, cash and chicks lifestyle -- commonly referred to as "bling" -- that many hip-hop artists flaunt in their videos, and aspire to and revel in, in their own lives.

"It's a fantasy not everybody gets to live," B. Stille said. "There are more people in the world who can't relate. It's entertainment ... in reality, people have bills, people have problems -- that's what we choose to write about. It's not like we promote this, but we live it.

"I read an article that said we were anti-bling. Nappy Roots ain't anti-anything. We just choose to rap about what we like most ... our country-style of living. Our values are still the same. Just be yourself."

As the interview was winding down, B. Stille took a moment to give some shout-outs to friends and relatives living in Bowling Green and Louisville, Ky., where he was born and raised.

For B. Stille, it really is a family thing.