N.W.H.

In late 1995 it seemed as if N.W.H., also known as Niggaz With Hats, was finally poised for media stardom. After short and disappointing stints as solo performers, the group had re-united and was going back into the studio to record its first album in more than a year. The result, (now out-of-print and highly collectable,) was the dark, angry, but eerily comedic double disk titled "The Black in the Hat Comes Back." But the album would never receive the attention it deserved.

This unfortunately was de riguer for the group who, though musically gifted, had become known more for their offstage antics and industry battles than for their music.

Indeed the group, an underground favorite from the early days of rap, had waited years to achieve mainstream recognition, only to gain it, ironically not from their music, but from a documentary entitled "Fear of a Black Hat," filmed by esteemed documentarian Nina Blackburn.

The film became the key to their expanding popularity. So while their music remained very hard to find, the film served to spread awareness of the group beyond the hip-hop underground. Soon the enigmatic trio of Ice-Cold, Tone-Def and Tasty-Taste, were discovered by new fans. Those who had been too afraid to go to a rap concert in the hood, could now watch the group from the comfort of their suburban homes and college dorm rooms. A whole new base of young, affluent and primarily white record buyers were anxious to hear, read, and see anything that pertained to NWH.

However the rappers were never able to enjoy their new notoriety. An unfortunate series of incidents, events, and accidents (all of which the group blamed on "Whitey," "The White Man," or "Those White Motherfuckers" depending on the day, time and to whom they were referring) kept the group from ever fully capitalizing on their new found fame.

The final straw was when the group's record label Def as Hell Muzik Werks was sold along with other labels to Grammatone Soundlabs, a company, once dedicated to the distribution of baroque and renaissance music, that was looking to expand into the pop musical mainstream.

But while Grammatone was committed to their new pop and rock acquisitions, they wanted nothing to do with rap. In fact Grammatone's owner, Klaus Wittenberg III, was vehemently committed to the elimination of the genre. This the result of his son having been killed years earlier, the victim of a nasty break-dancing accident where a lot of things unfortunately broke. It didn't help that his son was dancing to an old NWH track, the catchy and almost pop-like, "Dance Whitey Dance," when the accident occurred.

Wittenberg went out of his way to see to it that the Def as Hell Label was stymied, along with NWH. To this end he prevented all attempts by the group to release or create new music. He refused to release the artists from their contracts. He pulled all NWH albums off store shelves, and refused to distribute any new product.

Because of Wittenberg and Grammatone Soundlabs, N.W.H. was legally prohibited to record under the name of N.W.H. The name was now controlled by Grammatone.

A series of lawsuits followed with Grammatone winning successively. In the meantime the group's members tried anything possible to make ends meet and maintain their suddenly flagging careers.

In a desperate attempt to circumvent the legal system, the group stopped calling itself NWH and began to call itself N.N.N.W.H., which stood for Not Necessarily Niggaz With Hats. When a judge ruled this was too similar to the original NWH name, the group began calling themselves T.N.F.K.A.N.W.H., which stood for The Niggaz Formerly Known As Niggaz With Hats.

Ice Cold declared that they were definitely, "a whole different group of Niggaz." Unfortunately their fans agreed, as most were unable to decipher the long acronym and connect it to the original group. This along with the inherent difficulty of rhyming the long string of letters kept T.N.F.K.A.N.W.H. from achieving any widespread popularity.

Finally after legal maneuvering that nearly left them bankrupt, NWH won an appeal against Grammatone worth millions, and were once again Niggaz with Hats.

The group took the money and decided to produce and distribute their own music, ultimately creating their own label called TAMPON Records. The name was thought to be an acronym for Three Angry Motherfuckers Paid Over Net. Apparently this was a response to all the record companies that NWH felt had "bled them dry" in the past.

However before they could properly position their new label a series of attempted hits on the lives of NWH members occurred forcing all three hat wearing members UNDERGROUND. None of them have been heard from until now. For more see the EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE [DVD in stores July 8!] of Ice Cold talking about the group's self-imposed exile from the world of hip hop.