Watching the crowd at the National Corvette Museum Amphitheater the evening of April 27 was a striking experience. Coming to see a show by headliner Nappy Roots, along with St. Louis labelmate Abyss and Bowling Green crew Below Zero, was a remarkably diverse aggregation of people. Unlike the vision most may have had of such a crowd, there was a mix of fandom and family outing. There was an even mix of black and white, of children, teens, and young adults, with a few over-30 folks as well. Concessions included a trailer of barbecue along with the usual fare. A Nashville rap/hiphop radio station did a remote broadcast from the concert. Although the show was stopped by torrential rain, something was going on that marked a change in the rap and hiphop world.

Maybe this is why Nappy Roots was plucked from the unlikely location of Bowling Green by Atlantic Records. Skinny Deville calls it ‘changing the game’ in rap, taking the emphasis away from gold chains and putting it on having fun and doing something folks can play for their mama or sister, ‘even their pastor,’ says Deville. The sextet — Deville, Ron Clutch, Scales, B. Stille, Big V, and R. Prophet — has made a splash with their Atlantic debut Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz. It went gold within two months of its late-February release. The video to the first single ‘Awnaw’ is in rotation on both MTV and BET. In addition to going gold, Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz hit #24 with a bullet on the Billboard Top 200 album chart as of press time.

Nappy Roots has been making a swirl of TV appearances. Two days after their CD release party at FYE in Bowling Green, Nappy Roots performed ‘Awnaw’ on the Late Show with David Letterman, with Paul Shaffer providing the song’s organ hook lines. Just lately, Nappy Roots was on BET’s Spring Bling weekend April 26-28, Late Night with Conan O’Brien on April 30, and 106th and Park on BET on May 1. An appearance on Last Call with Carson Daly is scheduled for airing May 7 during Dalyës run at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

What makes Nappy Roots stand apart from the bulk of rap and hip-hop’ First, there is an attitude that, while sharing common ground with much of black culture, is distinctly different from inner city culture. Take out gangstas and bling-bling, put in overalls and low-budget good-timing. In the April 29 issue, Time magazine said ‘Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz . . . shows none of the crass preoccupation with pimping and cash that dominates rap from the coasts.’

Indeed, the preoccupation seems to be with things that you don’t need a lot of bucks to acquire. Customized cars get rapped about, but the rides are Cutlasses, not Escalades. Rather than ecstasy, ‘Ballin’ on a Budget’ makes the substances of choice ‘a pack of Dutch Masters and a pint of alcohol.’ One rapid-fire section of ‘Country Boys’ reveals some components of the Nappy Roots lifestyle — pork chops, green beans, dime sacks, booty, the ‘home dog,’ and ragtops.

While Nappy Roots hits many black cultural references, they also refer to topics your typical rural/smalltown fan of other genres can relate to — down home food, cars, family and friends, struggle, road trips, and living well within your means. Holding up how they live is at least as important to Nappy Roots as anything else they talk about. Their very name elicits living natural and close to the foundations of life and self.

That philosophy is behind the album’s title Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz. It ‘stands for something refreshing as well as good for you,’ said Skinny Deville. Big V elaborated, ‘You think of watermelon on a hot summer day and Mama done cut it in half — you want some of that. And that chicken, you know, I’ll steal it off the plate in the kitchen before she’s through cooking. And grits gotta stick to them ribs. So you gotta have all that’s good and then something to stick to you — and you’re gonna take it with you.’ The idea is that the music is so natural, so close to the bone that it’ll stay with the listener.

Between the six rappers, Nappy Roots delivers several different approaches to their vision of being country-real. Big V has a larger than life personality, both on record and in person. His big, grainy resonance can be fierce or laid back, either way commanding one’s attention. R. Prophet’s nasally ‘aww’ flavor and flowing delivery is a characteristic part of the Nappy Roots sound. He says his is ‘a style unlike any other. I try to just slide on tracks.’ Scales gives a one-word description of his style: ‘Slum . . . ain’t nothing too pretty, ain’t nothing too ugly. Some people call it thugly.’ B. Stille is equally meaty and dark. Skinny Deville is most often in the express lane, as thin and deft as his moniker and throwing rapid raps and strings of hard ‘ur’ sounds in the mix.

Altogether there is a vibe that’s a more relaxed hiphop, more celebratory of what’s enjoyable and less focused on what’s bleak. ‘Ballin’ on a Budget’ struts its good-timing on the cheap without whining. ‘Kentucky Mud’ thump-thumps its way down dirt roads and highways from E-town to Glasgow. ‘Po’ Folks’ breezes through with a message of being okay through hard times. Ditto for ‘Blowin’ Trees,’ flavored by punctuated harmonica and an almost-Jamaican sense of sunny wholeness. ‘I like making people’s heads bob,’ said Clutch, ‘making people happy, making people feel good.’

The first single does that. ”Awnaw’ is a fun song,’ said Deville, ‘pretty much describing how we do things in Kentucky in the words of country terms, slang, jargon.’ Big V explained the title as ‘Like ‘they did it’ but you don’t believe it. ‘He won the lottery.’ ‘Who won the lottery” ‘Silly Larry.’ ‘Awnaw, man!” The song describes where Nappy Roots came from, the toughness it took to succeed, and how they enjoy it (‘Them country boys on the rise/With them big fat wheels on the side/With the vertical grilles on the ride/And aww! aww! aww!’).

There are some great crank-it-up cruising tracks. ‘Sholiz’ has an irresistible thump and roll-with-my-crew vibe (‘What’s up, my folks – sholiz’). ‘Set It Out’ and ‘Ho Down’ both propel, and they also show the libidinous side of Nappy Roots. ‘Ho Down’ in particular, with the Barkays and based on their ‘Delgado,’ explores adventures with less-than-virtuous women (‘Next thing I know, gettin’ h**d while I drive/Eyes open wide down 65′). Well, references to sex and women are sprinkled throughout, like on ‘Ballin’ on a Budget’ — ‘Them Clydesdale Kentucky gals with muddy tails/We cut them gals, no ‘Villes, no wedding bells/Trick out on cheap motels, K-Y gels, and nothing else.’ ‘Heads Up’ is one big rap on those subjects.

Skit sections that often poke fun at themselves are not as numerous on Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz as on the previous No Comb, No Brush, No Fade, No Perm self-release, but there are still some here and there. Between the tracks ‘Blowin’ Trees’ and ‘Sholiz,’ we hear the guys greeting Scales, then a smarmy manager’s voice hollers for ‘Melvin’ (Scales is former WKU football player Melvin Adams), calls him to the back and scolds him for talking to his friends while on the job (‘Nappy Roots this, Nappy Roots that! This is work — get out there and take orders, please!’).

Not everything on Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz is country boy and overalls. Second track ‘Hustler’ is a splash of cold reality about having to hustle cash, getting on the street curb early — ‘I got to be the early bird/Just tryin’ to get what I deserve’ — doing whatever to prosper or just get by. Big V lends a heavy recitation toward the end: ‘Hustler — carry many meanings — whether you a crook or in them books — whether you’re using your mind or using a nine — bootleg alcohol or running a ball, you must get it in.’ The tracks ‘Slums’ and ‘Life’s a Bitch’ also echo the vibe.

The popularity of Nappy Roots is such at this point that a rumor of their appearance at Owensboro’s International Bar-B-Que Festival caused a flood of calls to the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. They found it necessary to print a story stating that they were not to appear. Time will tell how their country life rap and hiphop sticks with the national public accustomed to gangsta braggadocio, but right now Nappy Roots is striking a chord that hasn’t been struck before. As of press time, no word has been given on when the rained out show at the Corvette Amphitheater will be rescheduled. More information on what Nappy Roots is up to can be found at www.nappyroots.com or at the Atlantic website www.atlantic-records.com/nappyroots

Don Thomason is a writer and musician living in Dunbar. Visit him at www.myspace.com/donthomasonmusic