Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz

by

Nappy Roots

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Watermelon, Chicken & Grits is packed with excellent production. Complete with layered beats of all tempos, lush instrumentation and mind-blowing melodies. These boys are pretty country and one of them sounds like he got a deeper southern drawl than myself and that's pretty amazing considering their location. Country music at its best.

These southern boyz are really good rappers, I myself, was surprised that the cd was as good as it is because Nappy Roots virtually came from nowhere ( no pun intended )with Awnaw and stunned a lot of people. But considering that Jazze Pha handled the production of that song, it had to be something special. Exactly like Pha did with Jim Crow ( providing them with a tight beat that perfectly complimented the group and gave them some attention ) he does with Nappy Roots. Although Nappy Roots may be a better group, they still manage put out a classic debut album and, so far, the best album of the year. The production is refreshing to hear and is very unique. I wish the cd notes would have told us who produced each track because they have talent. Each song is diverse and sounds different from the next.

Their subject matter is Po Folk talk; food, nappiness, fros, project dreams, cutting, lack of money, gold grills etc. etc. Their execution is excellent, each member gets ample time to shine, and the album flows very smoothly. Tight songs include the single Awnaw, Hustla, Country Boyz, Ballin On A Budget, Kentucky Mud, Blowin Trees, Po Folk, Sholiz...heck all of em are tight. The best song has to be Headz Up with just an exceptional sing along chorus " Shawty where yo head at" and a pure dirty south beat as well as cypher like rapping by Nappy Roots.

The cd does have a few minor flaws. First of all, Nappy Roots is a six man collective and I still can't figure out which rapper is rapping because there was no intro to introduce each character and 16 barz of their style and there is very little braggadocio tracks. This is frustrating in the vein that Enter The 36 Chambers was because you didn't know who was rapping. They act like you already know who they are and can recognize the voices. Also in the liner notes it doesn't have which rapper is rapping on which song so again it would be a guessing game. Also there are some voice resemblances. One sounds a little like Scarface and another sounds like Cee-Lo, but the voice is as far as the comparisons go. Also one of the bonus "tracks" is just another stupid skit ( the only one on the album ), which to me makes no sense. These problems definitely don't detract from the cd but they are worth mentioning.

Nappy Roots gives the listener a full fledged meal, and further shows that people from the South can rap and produce just as good as anyone else. This cd shows further proof that the South is coming up not only in regular folks eyes, but also in the public's eye as well. I suggest that you get to your nearest record store as quickly as possible and give these country boys a chance. How could it hurt?