Nappy Roots

On October 31, I attended the Nappy Roots concert at Millet Hall. The whole gymnasium was packed with people who came with the intention of having a great time listening to quality Rap music. From the Halloween costumes to the power of the crowd, the whole event was unforgettable.

Who is Nappy Roots? Six students from Western Kentucky University decided to follow their dreams and form a rap group in 1996.Skinny DeVille, R Prophet, Big V, Scales, Ron Clutch, and B Stille are the stage names of Nappy Roots. Their real names are William Hughes, Ryan Anthony, Vito Tisdale, Melvin Adams, Ronald Wilson, and Brian Scott.Their southern-based roots, from Georgia and Kentucky, give them their unique style.

The diversity of the people in the concert was of a wide variety. The young crowd dressed informally or even dressed up for Halloween, making it a very interesting site. I was surprised to find many people dancing to the music. This was a big difference from the conservative formal concerts I have attended for this class.

The opening act was disappointing. First, they were thirty minutes late. Second, I couldn`t even hear what their name was due to the horrible accent the lead singer had. Third, they lacked up-beat songs that people could relate too. Two of the songs weren`t even songs people could dance to. The other song was too fast to hear what the words were, and people were in a state of confusion. Overall the group didn`t seem prepared for such an unforgiving crowd.

The long twenty-minute intermission came to an end.Nappy Roots ran to the stage, and the place explodes. We all listened to music off of their third album Watermelon Chicken & Gritz. Thefirst song goes through and I noticed that one device they used was a sort of a pre-lude. They would build up to the next song by getting the crowd hyped up, or giving some foreshadowing of what the next song might be.