The guys in Nappy Roots may be grown up, but they still know how to party

The fact that all five members of Kentucky hip-hop outfit Nappy Roots — Skinny Deville, Buffalo Stille, Big V, Fish Scales and Ron Clutch — join a conference call interview with The Daily Times is a sign of solidarity.

There are no egos with these guys. Each man is talented enough to put out solo records, and some have. But this is a collective of substance over flash, of depth over pretense. For a decade, the members of Nappy Roots have remained a dedicated brotherhood devoted to bigger ideals than those put forth by mainstream hip-hop artists.

It’s not easy, said Deville. But it’s real, and the fans who have remained loyal throughout the journey love these guys, and the songs they make, more than ever.

“We’ve always asked, how can someone take our music and apply it to their everyday life?” he said. “We reached a million people back in 2002, and those people have now matured and are living a totally different lifestyle. We don’t want to make things that are not appropriate for them.”

“We’re 10 years deep in the game, and we know which side of the bread is buttered for us,” Stille added. “We’re sticking with what got us to where we’re at now. We can go out here and rock out in front of 500 hippies, then go to the frat club, then go up in front of so-and-so at this other club. We can get into places a lot of cats can’t get into. We make the music that we know is going to keep us where we’re at.”

It’s been a relatively simple formula for the guys since they first came together in 1995 — traditional Southern hip-hop not beholden to fads or gimmicks, resistant to pressure from the industry to jump on any bandwagon, a commitment to positive messages and an emphasis on community.

The group released “Southern Fried Cess” in 1999, an effort that led to being signed by Atlantic Records. The next Nappy Roots album, 2002’s “Watermelon, Chicken and Gritz,” went on to sell more than 1 million copies on the strength of singles “Po’ Folks,” “Awnaw” and “Headz Up.” After a follow-up for Atlantic, the guys struck out on their own and have remained an independent entity ever since.

After releasing “The Pursuit of Nappyness” last year, the guys convened with respected Southern hip-hop production collective Organized Noize. When the band’s manager suggested the collaboration, Deville was incredulous, he said.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, if they’ll work with us!’ I said, ‘Let’s get at it,’” Deville said. “Organized Noize, they’re like the Rick Rubin of the South. They’re some of the best producers out there, and we got some phenomenal songs. The production is A-1.”

“Nappy.Org,” featuring the production work by the team that made albums by Goodie Mob and OutKast sound so sublime, is set to drop Sept. 27.

“It’s a real mature project,” Clutch added. “It’s so fitting for Nappy Roots at this stage in our career, and it’s so needed in hip-hop, period. It’s a mature sound for those who don’t want to go to the club, or if they got kids. It still hits hard, but we wanted something they can relate to.”

It may seem strange to hear hip-hop artists, especially the kings of feel-good bounce tracks like the members of Nappy Roots, talk about maturity when it comes to music. But these guys have always worked best off the beaten path. They’re all college-educated, and these days they’re family men as well. They’re community men, too, and it makes no sense, they said, to espouse one lifestyle in song and live another outside the studio.

“That’s not to say that we’re making nothing but music for 30-year-olds — young people definitely benefit from what we have to say — but we can’t sit here and rap about slapping bitches on the ass or selling dope,” Stille said. “We can’t really talk about that and then go give a positive message of staying in school and listening to authority figures. We say some things that aren’t really child appropriate sometimes, but Nappy Roots definitely makes music for picnics — something you can play that everybody’s gonna like.”