A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music

8. Nappy Roots: The Pursuit of Nappyness

Nappy Roots The Pursuit of Nappyness The Louisville skyline is a welcome sight on a summer evening. With only a dozen or so skyscrapers, the city does not convey an overwhelming presence. To the contrary, the buildings are a comfort , almost like a small chain of mountains that are both welcoming and mysterious. The Romanesque dome of the Aegon Center is the focal point, its peak illuminated from within at night by a series of muted lights. Viewed from across the river in Indiana, even the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge, which carries I-65 across the muddy Ohio River, appears to blend in with the urban landscape. This panorama has been the subject of hundreds of photographs taken from the popular Belle of Louisville, a steamboat constructed in 1914 that offers public excursions and dinner cruises. But it had likely not been featured on an album cover until 2010, when the southern rap group Nappy Roots released its fourth album , The Pursuit of Nappyness. The artwork paid tribute to the hometown of Nappy Roots front man Skinny Deville and fellow group members Clutch and B-Stille—a striking sepia-toned rendering of the Louisville skyline resting under an image of a tree with its roots extended downward toward the city. 132 8 133 Nappy Roots Nappy Roots has become known for combining images of rural Kentucky with thumping urban beats, so this tribute to the members ’ hometown was hardly a surprise. One of the tracks, though, was more poignant than usual, a gentle rap laid down over an acoustic guitar, Dobro, and ever-present bass line: “Life’s good but it definitelyain ’teasy/Rememberwewaskids,justnappy-headed,greasy.” And then the chorus, a feel-good sing-along packed full of truth: We can make it on our own But we ain’t got to be alone Just in case when things go wrong You can always come back home Dubbed “recession rap” by music critics, for its emphasis on staying positive during hard times, The Pursuit of Nappyness was the group’s second independent release, coming on the heels of a wildly successful but volatile stint with powerhouse Atlantic Records, where Nappy Roots sold 1.5 million copies of its debut album. The title, a play on the blockbuster movie The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith, also referred to their hard-won artistic freedom, says Skinny—music made on their own terms. “Like Will Smith—[the character he played] was losing his ass with everything, he was losing his family, and he did what he had to do to survive and take care of his family and his son. He sacrificed and sacrificed and sacrificed just to be able to take care of his son. And so to me, that movie symbolized a lot of things that were going on in a lot of people’s lives. We say, ‘How far are you going to go to keep it real?’ It’s the pursuit—everybody’s always on the chase for the next big thing, and for Nappy Roots that was making music. And that’s exactly what we did—we took a pay cut, we got back on the road. We made music again that didn’t try to be like anybody else, and the songs on that album represent us staying true to what we do.” 134 A Few Honest Words What Nappy Roots does is roots rap—a gritty blend of dusty guitars, catchy pop hooks, high-octane beats, and clever rhymes that celebrate where the group is from. This, Skinny says, was the intention from the beginning. “I always believed one person could make Kentucky rap. Nobody ever had. We wanted people to know that folks from Kentucky have talent to be reckoned with.” William Rahsaan Hughes, aka Skinny Deville, arrived on the campus of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green in the fall of 1993, eager to escape the strict gaze of his parents back in Jeffersontown, a suburb of Louisville. Although excited to be on his own, he admits that he was also glad to get away from the dangerous culture plaguing his hometown. “There was a lot of violence in Louisville at the time. Someone was dying like on a daily or weekly basis. And it was just better for me to disassociate myself from my old set of friends and hang out Skinny Deville and Scales of Nappy Roots...