Songoftheday 9/11/23 -We came in the game plain ya see, average man when the rest was ashamed to be...

 

 

"Po' Folks"- Nappy Roots featuring Anthony Hamilton

from the album Watermelon, Chicken, and Grits (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11

 

Today's song comes from the hip-hop group Nappy Roots, who came together in Kentucky in the mid-1990's when they were all attending university in the state. After a couple of independently-released mixtapes, the group was signed to Atlantic Records, where they recorded their debut major-label release Watermelon, Chicken, & Gritz. The lead single from the record was the party track "Awnaw", which reached #18 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, and stalled just under the halfway mark on the Billboard Hot 100 at #51 in the spring of 2002. (it also scored their sole UK chart appearance for a week at #89 on the British Singles Chart.) 

 

For their second release from the set the group offered the philosophical ponderings of "Po' Folks". Written by the group and produced by the Trackboyz team, the lyrics spell out the "money can't buy you piece of mind" veering into a celebration of the "country life" that's totally different from what country music serves up, and a mantra that as long as they've got God they're OK. R&B singer Anthony Hamilton, who came from church choir background in the "rural" city of Charlotte, North Carolina, provides the chorus on the track. Hamilton was originally signed to Uptown Records in the mid 1990's, but after the lead single from what would've been his debut album XTC, "Nobody Else", stalled down at #63 on the R&B Singles chart, the album's released was stopped and he was let go. But his participation in "Po' Folks" reignited interest in the singer. The production as well as the music video casts the record as a more street-worn version of Arrested Development's gig from the 1990s. As for the Nappy Roots, they joined the long but tenuous line of rap groups with a message having a solitary moment of success on the pop charts...

"Po' Folks" became the Nappy Roots' first and only appearance in the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in November of 2002, while climbing to #13 on the R&B Singles chart (spending a hefty 28 weeks on the list), and peaked at #10 on the Rap Singles chart. On the radio, the song also went to #14 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. The Watermelon, Chicken, and Grits album, released in February of that year, climbed to #24 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #3 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Po' Folks" was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, losing out to Nelly and Kelly Rowland for the #1 pop hit "Dilemma". 

A third single from the album, "Headz Up", featured high-speed rapping over a different take on an electrobass groove. Despite its charms, it stopped short down at #88 on Billboard's R&B chart. 

The Nappy Roots' follow-up album on Atlantic Records, Wooden Leather, arrived in 2003, and came in at #12 on the Billboard 200 (their highest rank on that chart) and #9 on the R&B Albums list. The label pumped in some heavy production hitters like Lil' Jon, Kanye West, and Mike City, but it ended up selling a fraction of its predecessor. The Mike City-produced lead single "Roun' The Globe" tried to expand their "country" theme but fell quite flat, stalling at #53 on the R&B Singles chart and slipping on to the Hot 100 at #96 (their last appearance there). With that the group and Atlantic parted ways.

The group's third album, and first independently released under their Nappy Roots label, was The Humdinger, which spent a week at #73 on the Billboard 200 in 2008, and peaked at #13 on the R&B Albums list. From it the single "Good Day" was their most recent R&B Singles showing at #54. Mind you, that song has found a life of its own through the TikTok app, and it by a long mile their most-streamed song, at currently over 100 million streams just on Spotify alone. A second indie record, The Pursiut Of Nappyness, arrived in 2010, and came in at #40 on the R&B Albums chart.

Since then, the Nappy Roots have released five more studio albums, most recently 4ORTY in 2020. Their most recent single, "Box Of Chocolates", came out in the fall of 2022.

 

This is the end of the road for the group on this series, but Anthony Hamilton will be back.

 

(6/10)

 

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Here's the group performing in 2018...

Up tomorrow: Country girl gone crossover is letting it out.