— Nelly reigns atop Billboard’s pop songs chart for the fifth time with
his new song, “Just a Dream.” The melodic single follows previous
chart-toppers “Over and Over,” “Hot in Herre,” “Dilemma” and “Shake Ya
Tailfeather.”
But Nelly’s perch doesn’t bring him peace.
More than a decade into his career as an unlikely hip-hop phenomenon, Nelly still feels that he has to prove himself.
His debut album in 2000, “Country Grammar,” sold
more than 9 million copies, making it one of the most successful rap
debuts of all time. His single “Over and Over” with
“Sweat” and “Suit” albums in 2004 gave him the distinction of being the
first solo artist and the first hip-hop artist to debut at Nos. 1 and 2
in the same week with simultaneous releases.
He has won three Grammy Awards, American Music Awards, and trophies from
But to Nelly, none of this seems to have been enough for people in the industry to give him his due.
“It’s a weird feeling. For some reason, people want
to overlook the things I’ve accomplished from 1999 to now,” Nelly said
by telephone from
“We busted our asses, just to have people overlook
it and downplay it. After so much success in the beginning, they wait
for you to not succeed.”
Part of what irks Nelly is the sting he felt when he didn’t make the cut on
Most of the industry experts who voted dismissed Nelly’s contributions.
“I thought I didn’t have anything to prove,” Nelly
says. “I thought the numbers would speak for themselves. Everything is
right there.”
Nelly says he probably came the farthest from anyone on the list. Until he came along, no other rapper from
“Everybody worked hard, but I didn’t come from a
multiplatinum group. I didn’t have that foundation. We got tossed into
the deep end of the pool and told to swim,” he says of himself and his
St. Lunatics crew, which includes Murphy Lee, Ali, Kyjuan and City Spud.
Nelly also felt his exclusion was a major insult to his city.
“You can’t sit up there and tell us we didn’t stand
up together for ‘Country Grammar,'” he says. “We got talent here. Don’t
denounce the things we accomplished.”
“I was surprised Nelly didn’t make
Nelly also is contending with the fact that “5.0” is
following 2008’s “Brass Knuckles.” That CD, which included the
Fergie-assisted single “Party People,” failed to live up to his usual
blockbuster standards, although it did sell enough copies to go gold.
“With ‘Brass Knuckles,’ the music changed so much
from what it was,” Nelly says. “The record didn’t do Nelly numbers, but
I love that album. There’s great songs on there, but people didn’t give
it a chance, and said it didn’t have this and it didn’t have that.”
That may not be the case with “5.0.” For the album,
Nelly stockpiled an array of hip-hop, R&B, pop and dance songs over
the course of 12 tracks (15 on the deluxe album version).
In addition to “Just a Dream,” the CD includes “Move That Body” featuring T-Pain and Akon.
Some will call “5.0” Nelly’s most commercial-leaning
CD. Staci Static, assistant program director and music director for
urban radio station
“I don’t mind at all, with the dance and club and top 40 direction,” she says. “I root for him.”
But that crossover status has kept Nelly’s new tunes out of the rotation at the R&B and hip-hop station.
“We haven’t found a single yet that puts him with his
urban audience,” says Static, for whom Nelly filled in on the air
during her maternity leave. “I like ‘Move That Body.’ I think he makes
great workout music, and that goes along with the direction he’s in. I
see a future like LL Cool J’s but even better, because he’s more
attractive.”
says he feels Nelly is as pop-oriented, mainstream and accessible as he
has always been, and that “Just a Dream” is a “gigantic” record for the
station.
“As soon as it was released, it went right to the
top. We put it on pretty quickly, and the audience responded right
away,” he says.
Part of the song’s appeal is that it shows a more
vulnerable, realistic side to Nelly, McHugh says. “A lot of hip-hop is
bragging,” he says, but on “Just a Dream,” Nelly’s saying “he should’ve
brought her a ring, now she’s gone and his heart is broken.”
Nelly says he didn’t have a particular goal in mind with “5.0.”
“I didn’t want to overthink it like I tend to do sometimes,” he says.
He did insist that “Just a Dream” be the lead single.
“I’m more familiar with how to make songs successful
now, and you’d be a dummy to make a record you don’t think will be
played on the radio,” Nelly says. “And when you’re releasing that first
joint off of an album, you want it to be as universal as possible, and
I think that was the most universal song I had. And it didn’t sound
like anything else.”
“Liv Tonight” featuring
foray into high-energy dance music, not unlike what Usher went for with
“DJ Got Us Falling in Love,” or nearly any Black Eyed Peas track.
“I don’t mind trying new things,” Nelly says. “It
doesn’t bother me. At the end of the day, versatility is the key to
longevity.”
“Gone” featuring
“We can’t make ‘Dilemma’ over, and we would never
try,” he says. “But it’s like we were making an extension of the story.
We thought we could extend the story eight years later.”
Comeback looks like the perfect word to describe
Nelly’s new music, considering the success so far, but he’s hesitant
about calling it that.
“People are going to say what they’re going to say,”
he says. “I don’t have a problem with it. But as an artist, you don’t
see it as a comeback. But if it’s a comeback from not having a song
that achieved as high as the last one, then I guess it is.
“But I’m just trying to do the best music I can.”
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NELLY’S NUMBERS
(Ranked high to low)
—”Country Grammar” (2000) 9 million copies sold, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200
—”Nellyville” (2002) 6 million, No. 1
—”Suit” (2004) 3 million, No. 1
—”Sweat” (2004) 1 million, No. 2
—”Da Derrty Versions: The Reinvention” (2003) 1 million, No. 12
—”Sweatsuit” (2005) 500,000, No. 26
—”Brass Knuckles” (2008) 500,000, No. 3
(500,000 copies or more sold equals gold; 1 million or more equals platinum)
Source: Recording Industry Association of America
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(c) 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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