Scales sauntered into Utley’s with a clear plastic cup of Patron. He and Nappy Roots’ in-house producer Joel Hop were the first of the good ole’ boys of rap to arrive at Utley’s Sept. 4 to interview a few of the new faces to Bowling Green music.
“I don’t know about the other guys, but me and Joel are excited about this,” said Scales before passing the Patron around the table to Tony Smith and Justin Wilson of the local rock ensemble Sleeper Agent. Within 10 minutes, B. Stille, Big V and Ron Clutch sat around the long table, Land Sharks and Patron shots in hand, representing four of the five members of Nappy Roots.
Western’s pride in the hip-hop world was in town advertising for today’s concert on campus, which will begin at 6:45 p.m. on DUC South Lawn. They’re celebrating the day former Gov. Paul Patton bestowed the Bowling Green based group with two of the highest honors possible in Kentucky, serious points of pride for the group that revels in their southern heritage.
The first was a plaque commissioning the members of NR as Kentucky Colonels, an honor which, according to the secretary of state’s Web site, is the highest civilian honor possible in the state.
The second award was something Ron Clutch describes as “surreal.” Patton commemorated Sept. 16 as an official state holiday: Nappy Roots Day.
The group came together on Western’s campus and produced their first album “Country Fried Cess.” The album attracted attention from major labels and Atlantic soon picked them up.
Their first Atlantic recording “Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz” went multi-platinum and NR was the top selling hip-hop group in 2002.
They recorded one more album, “Wooden Leather,” with Atlantic in 2003 before striking out on their own. Not considering the Internet compilations they’ve produced, they didn’t release another album until “Humdinger” in August, which was recorded on their own label, Nappy Roots Entertainment Group.
Kentucky has always been good to Nappy and they love Bowling Green.
“My man Big V, he says ‘this is where they birth ‘em,’” Clutch said.
So, they agreed to let us meet them and between Utley’s patio and The Brewing Company’s basement rock and rap learned a lot about each other.
The night ended at a house party, which Clutch now admits to only vaguely remembering, but that doesn’t matter.
“That might’ve just been some fans or it might’ve been friends,” he said. “That’s what we did back in the day and that’s what we still do. That’s how we all met, house parties.”
Members of Sleeper Agent interview Nappy Roots
ON SLEEPER AGENT
Scales- How long ya’ll been around?
Tony- I’ve been playing Bowling Green since I was 16, so five years. I’ve been in a couple of different bands, the most prominent one was called Decade of Experts and Assassins. Yeah, a long f—— name.
Scales- Where do ya’ll play at mostly?
Tony- Well, there’s one underage venue that you can play here that’s really good, you know, it has a good scene. That’s Bread & Bagel. And then the only really good 21-and-over venue for a rock band is Tidball’s. It’s right over there. You have to go to Nashville really.
Scales- So what do, um, what’s the response like around here though?
Tony- Around here with kids like 17-14 it’s kind of funny, 17-14 they really enjoy it, 17-14 they really get into it. And that’s really Bowling Green. Not much here in Bowling Green.
Scales- So how’d ya’ll put the band together?
Tony- I was 16 in high school. I was trying to write novels when I was 16 and I just decided it was a lot easier just to put it to music, and about three other kids that felt the same as I did … 200 Bowling Green shows since.
Scales- 200?
Tony- Yeah, in Bowling Green we just play all the time.
ON WOMEN
Scales- What’s the women like for rock stars?
B. Stille- Illegal?
Tony- Usually illegal, yeah.
B. Stille- Oh yeah, you guys said you perform for young crowds.
Tony- I was telling them earlier, like we performed a show and two girls tried to drag me away for like a three-way. And I was like, I just reached for my bandmate. And he was like “Oh yeah man, we gotta go do that thing.”
Scales- Wow. Such discipline.
Tony- They were younger girls who were really well-endowed for their age, but you just can’t do s— about it.
ON NAPPY’S VIDEOS
Tony- I remember seeing the “Po’ Folks” video and it had shots from around Bowling Green, right?
B. Stille- Well, “Awnaw” did.
We shot “Awnaw” in Bowling Green.
Tony- I just remember like interview clips in “Po’ Folks” that had the “I’m country and that’s what Kentucky is.”
Scales- Yeah, OK, that was Taylorsville, Ky.
Tony- Is anyone from Taylorsville?
Clutch- My grandfather, man. He’s from there. Actually, we shot that in location in Taylorsville, Ky., on his land. So, there was a connection. I growed up there. Well, I ain’t gonna say … I spent my summers there and growed up. I’m from Louisville, Ky., but my daddy’s from Taylorsville, Ky., and my granddaddy’s from Taylorsville, Ky., so that was like going back to my second home, kinda … going there and shooting guns and fishing. We wanted to show what we are. That’s a part of Nappy. It’s a part of Kentucky.
B. Stille- We was in this random woman’s house, you know what I’m sayin’, cooking breakfast.
Clutch- Damn, we did do that.
B. Stille- And they put that in the video, you know what I’m sayin’? Like, I was eating an actual egg sandwich that she cooked me. I was on the video eating that, stuffing my face. We were just in some random chick’s, I mean old lady’s house. It was hot. It was a big event to her, to let her open up her home to us.
Tony- Definitely man. I really … If I ever do anything beyond Bowling Green I would come back here and do something of the sort. Like, I’ve been here so long, might as well do something with it.
Justin- That’s why I love listening to you guys, because I can relate to what you’re saying about like keeping your roots or whatever. I always hear you guys like throwing back “Our roots are Kentucky, small town s—.”
ABOUT ATLANTIC
Tony- If you guys don’t mind me asking, so like I was saying earlier, you had a No. 1 selling hip-hop group record and then a year later you guys released “Wooden Leather,” and then … Did you guys get dropped from Atlantic? Or, what’s the story behind that?
Scales- Naw, we, uh … The whole hip-hop industry, all the labels went through some major changes. Atlantic Records downsized and joined companies with, they started a new company with WEA, which is Warner Bros., Electra and Atlantic Records. So, they like fired more than half they staff … So, through the mix up the artists got caught in the shuffle. Like, people wasn’t really working ’cause they knew they was gonna get fired. They wasn’t sure if they was gonna get fired so they just, there wasn’t no focus on the record. The label didn’t put enough attention. Through all this, they wasn’t putting up attention to our project. So, we never got dropped. They actually came to us and we came to an agreement that we don’t want to go through that no more and they was cool enough to let us off without a debt. So, here we are now independent.
ON THE SCENE
Herald- Was there a hip-hop scene when you guys were here?
Scales- Naw, we was creating it. I’m sure there was nobody in front of us who was paving the way or gave us an idea of how to do it at all. We watched Master P and that’s who we patterned ourselves after as far as business. If we did a show, people were like “What’s the show?” They knew what the show was, but just wasn’t used to seeing a local group get up and perform. “What they gonna do? Ya’ll gonna get up there and rap?” It’s like it was a question mark. There wasn’t no rap performances going on here before us. Our first show was in Nite Class.
ON NAPPY’S FIRST SHOW
B. Stille- It’s funny just looking back at it.
Clutch- It’s funny cause all we knew was just to get drunk.
B. Stille- I booked Nappy Roots’ first paying gig, right? It was for Katofest in Garrett for about 15 people. And I hooked it up with a promoter in my psychology class in Tate Page. And, uh, basically we put together Katofest and like a grand total of 12 people was in there and we got paid $75. But, we chopped that up and we had a good time ’cause that was our first paid show.
Tony- That’s the best thing to do, man. Like, if there’s 12 people just …
Scales- Just rock out.
B. Stille- And six of those people was like people we brought.
Reach Holly Brown at diversions@chherald.com.
.