The Pursuit of Nappyness

My ex-wife2 made me a Nappy Roots tie (iron on decal) which I used to wear in my classroom on September 16--which is (as declared by Governor Paul E. Patton (1995 – 2003) the official Nappy Roots Day in Kentucky.

My students would always see it and ask me, "Do you listen to Nappy Roots?" Incredulous, laughing. I would respond by saying, "Well, all I can say is that all my life been po'  but it really don't matter no mo',  and they wonder why we act this way, Nappy Boys gon' be okay. Okaaaaay." And the kids would ho-owl. It was fun at my expense, but I had enough in my account to cover it in those days.

And I really did love Nappy Roots. Those first two albums--Watermelon, Chicken, and Grits and Wooden Leather were in regular rotation in my CD player.

But then I lost track of them. I don't know why I didn't know about 2008's The Humdinger, 2010's The Pursuit of Nappyness, 2011's Nappy Dot Org, or 2015's 40Akerz Project...but I didn't. Until I walked into the beautiful new Northeast Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library a couple of weeks ago.

My #1🌞 had recently watched the Hulu series on The Wu-Tang Clan, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and it had made him anxious to know more about rap and hip-hop. So he did what Millennials do: posted a request for recommendations on Facebook. So I responded with "Paris's Sonic Jihad is my favorite rap album of all time." And then I thought about it a little more, and posted again: "And if you want to get Louisville about it, there's Nappy Roots." Because even though I hadn't paid much attention to Nappy Roots for the past eleven years, they still sprang to mind.

And then I went to the NE / LFPL and as I was looking around, I thought: Nappy Roots. And went to look in the CD section, and was surprised to see five of their albums there, only one of which (the first) I possessed. I considered getting all four of the others, thought, "But then I won't listen to any of them," and just picked one. The cover made the choice for me:

I mean...if that's not funny, I don't know what is.

Alas, as usual the CD sat gathering dust for three weeks, and when I saw that it was due and I could only renew it one more time, into the CD player that disc went. I guess I'm just the kind of guy who needs a hard deadline.

So I've been listening to the album this morning.

It is very different from the other two Nappy Roots albums I've heard. It is very different from every other rap album I've heard.
For one thing, it has some spoken words / no music interludes...one of which opens the album. That's kind of bold, isn't it? It made the whole thing seem more intimate...like you were hanging out with the band or sitting in the recording studio with them. I liked that. 

And the lyrics weren't all the "I'm the biggest badass in the world and I've fucked ten thousand women" kind of thing. They were more real life. And there was a touch of humor here and there, such as when one of the rappers proclaims the band's success by saying,  
"We international now, like the House of Pancakes." 

And the music.... Sometimes it sounded pretty much like normal rap music. But other times it actually seemed very close to being ambient music. That's not normal, is it?

So. I'm going to go listen to this album again. Take an hour of solace before I turn on the news again. That news...sheesh. Hard core gangsta shit there. I need to get a little nappy before I dive back into that.