"Digging graves of the mentally dead and resurrecting their state of unawareness and ignorance." Frukwan describes the meaning of the group's name. Helping give birth to hip-hop’s subgenre of Horrorcore and one of hip-hop's first supergroups, Gravediggaz was born at a time when all four members were at low points in their careers.

Already one of hip-hop’s most legendary producers, Prince Paul was at a crossroads in his career resulting in experimenting with darker-sounding beats. He recruited a young soon-to-be legendary producer RZA, who was at a different type of crossroads in his career, not having the best experiences with various labels before going on to start the global phenomenon that is The Wu-Tang Clan. Also added were Frukwan, a former member of Stetsasonic with Paul, and Too Poetic, a young MC navigating his way in the game after creating underground buzz with his 2 brothers and their short-lived group the Brothers Grym and before his unfortunate death from colon cancer. The four transformed themselves into The Undertaker (Paul), The RZArector (RZA), The Gatekeeper (Frukwan) and The Grym Reaper (Too Poetic) to form Gravediggaz.

On 6 Feet Deep the group utilizes horror-themed imagery and lyrics combined with black comedy and satire to vent their frustrations with the hip-hop record industry. Singles "Diary of a Madman," "Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide" and "1-800 Suicide" lead an onslaught of tracks 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". Production is mostly handled by Paul with RZA handling a few tracks.