[2] Additionally, Paul and rapper Frukwan had both recently left Stetsasonic, and while Paul had received much praise for his instrumentals for De La Soul's acclaimed debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, the group's follow-up album De La Soul is Dead was not well received, and De La Soul were beginning to handle more of their own production, alienating Paul from the group and leaving him in a "dark [and] depressed" mood, which was reflected in the instrumentals he was creating at this time.

[1][2][3] Paul called rappers RZA, Frukwan, and Poetic separately, inviting them to listen to these new instrumentals in his home, and RZA suggested that they form a group together and proposed they name it Gravediggaz, which met with the approval of the four, who each took on "grave-themed" aliases - the Undertaker (Prince Paul), the Grym Reaper (Poetic), the Gatekeeper (Frukwan) and the RZArector - and recorded the demo "The House That Hatred Built".

Subsequently, Poetic began working at a bagel factory, Frukwan got a job making clothes, and the RZA co-founded the Wu-Tang Clan, which Paul later observed had been influenced by the Gravediggaz' conceptualization as a concept-oriented rap supergroup.

Poetic rewrote his intro verse after some bad takes, establishing the energy that would carry over to the rest of the album's vocal sessions.

[2] Gravediggaz was one of the first rap groups in the subgenre horrorcore, which The Quietus writer David Bennun described as "a then novel means of addressing black life at street level [and] finding a new way of getting that message across".

[3] Q magazine said that the Gravediggaz "use death, burial and The Grim Reaper as central themes for a chilling mid-tempo stomp through America's urban problems.

[3] In contrast to the serious-toned violent threats of hardcore rap, the Gravediggaz' lyrics combine horror themes with black comedy and satire, exemplified by the album's original title, Niggamortis.

[3] According to Bond, "Gravediggaz were born out of a disdain and hatred for the bullshit that surrounded four men whose talents were under represented at the time and set out to make the most uncompromising music possible."

[2] "Death Trap" samples the Whole Darn Family's "7 Minutes of Funk";[7] The song's lyrics refer to drug overdoses, murder and Lorena Bobbitt.

[15] The Chicago Tribune concluded that, "Even with their rotten language and funereal imagery, the Gravediggaz's grim rapping is not the lurid, flesh-chopping of, say, Insane Poetry.