In Los Angeles it's about 8:20 in the evening, and the Nappy Roots, the pride of Kentucky, are racing down the street in a long white van that's extraordinarily anti-bling. "Speed up, man!" Clutch laments. "We 'bout to miss it." The van zips past a sports bar, then hastily pulls over. All six members of the group pile out like kids headed toward ice cream. They scramble over the grass into the sports bar, and they politely introduce themselves to the managers and ask that the channel be changed. Their performance on Pepsi Smash is about to come on the WB, and the guys aren't hiding their excitement. The Nappy Roots served more than 1 million customers with their 2002 major-label debut, Watermelon, Chicken and Gritz, and they hope to do even bigger numbers with their new album, Wooden Leather, but for now they're humble Southern boys who still get excited about seeing themselves on television.

The Nappy Roots are a young group, but Wooden Leather is actually their fourth album. They're a brotherhood in which all six parts are equal, though each part is different. Three of them have kids, three don't. Three finished college, three didn't. Three drink heavily, and the others are quitting. Unlike many groups, there's no consistent aesthetic between them. They're an amalgamation of looks and rhyme styles. And there's no standout leader. "We're emocratic," Big V says. "Everybody got the power. It's majority rules." To know the group, you must know each of the six individuals:

1) Skinny DeVille (government name: William Hughes), 28, has one of the best monikers in hip-hop today, a Cadillac-logo belt buckle and a cool, sly charisma that draws fans in. He's the philosopher of the group and a plotter who's always thinking ten steps ahead.

2) Scales, or Fish Scales (Melvin Adams Jr.), 27, is an ex-basketball star, a power forward celebrated nationally in high school who once scored thirty points in a game against current NBA star Jermaine O'Neal. He used to be known as a sloppy drunk, but he recently gave up alcohol. "More than 1 million people listen to the words that I'm sayin'," he says. "I wanna be as clear as possible, 'cause this is power. Music is power." (But he did get sloppy drunk with Brittany Murphy in Kuwait back in June. More on the Middle East later. The group got sloppy drunk with Barbara Bush a few months ago. More on that later, as well.

3) Big V (Vito Tisdale), 27, is a high-octane power-bass MC like Busta Rhymes or Bonecrusher. He was a star fullback in high school but got hurt during freshman year in college and dropped out. You can hear a football player's fury in his flow. He's a porno freak covered with tattoos, has five children by two women and wears a silver chicken claw around his neck.

4) Ron Clutch (Ronald Wilson), 28, is the oldest and, says Big V, "the conscience of Nappy Roots." He's also the shortest, but he's completely unafraid to go head to head with Big V. "They punch, wrestle and do it all," says Scales of Big V and Clutch. "They spill drinks on each other, too, but they stay brothers."

5) B. Stille (pronounced Still), or Buffalo Stile (Brian Scott), 23, often pairs his urban sportswear with a cowboy hat. He's often considered the best MC. "He take up a lot of space, so we call him Buffalo Stile," Scales says. "He'll come through and knock your lamp over or something. He the baby of the clique, so we look out for him."

6) Prophet, or R. Prophet (as in Our Prophet; Kenneth Anthony), 25, wears white Kangols and Adidas running suits like LL Cool J circa '85 and can usually be found talking to the prettiest girl in the room. He grew up in Oakland, California, and has one of those delicious-toned voices that come along once or twice a generation, like Q-Tip's or Guru's. "My brother think I got extra vocal cords," he says. "When I first started rhymin', people asked me if I had something mechanical in me. They'd ask, do I run on batteries?"

With all six guys on every track, a lot of Nappy Roots songs are like A Tribe Called Quest's "Scenario" with a Southern twist: a big gang of MCs with high-energy group choruses but without the urban angst. "We're a family," DeVille says. "We was on the road a whole year and not really homesick, not even really wantin' to go home. We don't roll with a big crew, because we are the crew."

The gang found one another in and around Western Kentucky University, in Bowling Green, between 1995 and '97, each man trickling in his own way. They all attended Western Kentucky, except for Big V, who'd left Eastern Kentucky University but was then known as the king of Bowling Green. "We came together through weed, really," Scales says.

The group pooled school loans and used the money to buy a local music store, which was named ET's Music (ET for Everything's Tight). The store also had a recording studio. "That studio was blazing hot," Clutch says. "Whatever it was outside, it was ten degrees hotter inside. Case of beer, fifth of liquor, some weed, and we're rappin'. And you could hear it in the CD. So we knew we was on to something different."

In 1997, they recorded their first album, Country Fried Cess, and sold self-burned CDs in the store and on the street. They moved thousands of copies, which kept them from having to get real jobs but, more important, created a buzz. "We wanted people to burn it and copy it and dub it," DeVille says. "Do anything you can to get us out there."

Somehow -- they're still not exactly sure how -- Atlantic Records got a copy of the album and signed the part-time students to a record deal in 1998. The advance was enough to upgrade the store and the studio and give each man $2,300. But while working on their next album, they discovered what the label really wanted from them. "They was on more of a stereotypical view of folks from Kentucky," Clutch says. "They wanted us to . . . well, to me, it felt like buffoonery. And that's not what we was about." They ended up getting shelved.

Because they owned a studio, Nappy Roots were able to record another album, No Comb, No Brush, No Fade, No Perm, and again sold it themselves. In time, Atlantic came around, and in 2002, when they released Watermelon, there were already thousands of fans waiting for it.

Many of those fans, especially black Southern men, are now in the Middle East, fighting as American soldiers, and earlier this year, when the military asked them who they wanted to see perform, the number-one vote-getter in hip-hop was Jay-Z, and number two was the Nappy Roots. So this past June, they traveled with the USO to Kuwait, Qatar and Baghdad. "I'm here to tell you the war ain't over," Scales says.

They were awed by the wreckage and the intense heat and the constant danger that mark every moment for the men and women in uniform, but they have enough intelligence to separate supporting the troops from supporting the ongoing war. "We see what's goin' on," DeVille says. "We see [George W. Bush] cleanin' up what his father done did. And not findin' any evidence of anything they were sent to find, it makes you say, 'What's really goin' on? What's he already own?' That's oil. I wouldn't go over there and fight -- I'm like Ali with it -- but I feel my troops, and I support my soldiers who protect our country."

But what makes Nappy Roots who they are is that just after DeVille criticized Bush, Prophet laughed about partying with his daughter. It seems a few months ago they performed at Yale University, and "first twin" Barbara Bush came up onstage with them. "After the show we went back and started drinkin', and she didn't wanna stop!" Prophet says. "She tried to take us to the bar, and we was like, 'Yo, we gotta go.' We got in the van to leave and she came and got in the van. She had a crush on somebody [in the group], so we had fun, talked our shit. Secret agents was outside the van, and then we just rolled on out."

Just another day in the life of famous rappers who are also well-mannered country boys. "I don't feel like a celebrity," DeVille says. "I feel like I'm kickin' it with my boys on a spring-break trip."

(September 24, 2003)

Watch the "Roun' the Globe" video