Nelly: A Legend Who Gets No Respect

I'm tired of having the conversation about Drake being the new Nelly. I'm tired of people acting like Nelly just made a bunch of pop songs. People aren't respecting Nelly and they act like he didn't have a huge influence on the rap game. There's this assumption that because Nelly had really popular music that he wasn't saying anything on his songs or albums and that's just blatant disrespect people are pushing. People need to respect Nelly and his influence.

Can we just start with the idea that Nelly isn't real hip hop. That's some bullshit that was started all the way back when Nelly was his prime. It was started by KRS-One who felt Nelly wasn't lyrical enough compared to others who were popular at the time. From there more people jumped on the wagon about how he wasn't a real rapper. This led to people stating he was too pop and didn't have any edge to him at all meaning he couldn't be a rapper. Eventually Nelly responded to all of the criticism in the third verse of his song #1 simply stating:

I'm tired of people judgin what's real Hip-Hop, half the time you be them niggas who fuckin album flop. You know, boat done sank and it ain't left the dock. Mad cause I'm hot, he's just mad cause he not. You ain't gotta gimme my props, just gimme the yachts, gimme my rocks, and keep my fans coming in flocks, until you top the Superbowl, keep your mouth on lock.

That's how Nelly responded to the criticism, but can we talk about how Nelly doesn't receive credit for his lyricism and that many of his songs actually do have important messages that are overlooked by his critics? For this I'd like to look at two songs. The first being the essential Nelly starter song Country Grammar and the second being Say Now.

People like the song Country Grammar and assume it's just about Nelly representing the fun side of his city, but these people aren't really paying attention. That hook sure is catchy, but it's 2017 as I write this and a lot of people still don't realize it's about a drive-bye shooting. The song has a catchy hook for sure:

I'm going down, down, baby, your street, in a Range Rover, street sweeper baby, cocked, ready to let it go. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa what, listen to it pound, light it up and take a puff, pass it to me now

When he refers to a street sweeper and listen to it pound, those are references to a gun but nobody stopped to listen and the reference is made even more blunt when he states:

Who say pretty boys can't be wild niggas? Loud niggas, O.K. Corral niggas, foul niggas, running the club and busting the crowd, nigga. How nigga? Ask me again and it's going down, nigga

This is Nelly's first major hit when people are saying he's too pop, not lyrical and too soft to be a rapper. Meanwhile Nelly is cleverly writing catch songs about doing drive byes and shooting up the club. But what about a message? Does Nelly have a message? Let's take a look at his song Say Now in which he took lyrics from Country Grammar and turned them into the bridge:

Say now, can you hoes come out to play now? 

Nelly takes the hook from a fun song about a drive bye and turns it into a song about the violence in St. Louis. The hook for isn't referring to women like the original. Instead it's referring to other men Nelly wishes to engage in violence. The whole song paints pictures of violence in the city from the very first verse which he opens with:

Gun shots ringed out over the city and had everybody duckin and runnin checkin for any kinda shelter cause them peoples man they at it again. If you ain't heard or seen it then you better pretend, ain't got no time for stopping ain't no catching your wind. Ya baby mommas on the porch telling her daughters come in, got fathers grabbing sons where the hell have you been?

The thing is it's not just about how violent the city is. It's also about the fact that nobody cares. There was nobody looking to prevent any of this. Instead there were older people in the city mad at Nelly for the way he represented the city claiming he was sending the children the wrong message:

Tryin ta put my city on the map and they mad at me, the same city some of them live in and they mad at me, when I come down to speak derrty why you mad at me?

He continues later in the verse bringing up none of these people cared about the children until they believed Nelly was the issue. Instead he was left to figure out these questions on his own like the children who were growing up in the city at the same time:

I ain't been livin this life for too long, and I can't count how many times someone has asked me what's wrong. Why my mother was gone? Why my daddy wasn't home? And the same shit they told me I found myself telling my own

So now we know Nelly has the ability to be lyrical and bring people closer to the issues at home. But, Nelly had a lot of other influences on Hip Hop as well. Have you noticed a lot of Nelly's songs included melodic singing? Bone Thugs used a lot of singing mixed with their rap flows too, but not to the same extent Nelly did, nor to the same popularity levels. Nelly's flow became iconic because there was no autotune, and this was before T-Pain. Nelly was the only one singing on his tracks, not just hooks but the verses. Now it seems like 3/5 rappers who rise to national popularity include some sort of melodic notes in their verses. That's Nelly's flow no matter how you slice it.

The last thing I want to touch on musically is Nelly's competition at the time. Drake is competing with people like Lil Uzi Vert, Future, Lil Yachty and others. That's not to say there aren't rappers like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole but the quality of competition just isn't the same. Nelly was competing against guys like Nas, Jay Z, Eminem, 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, The Game, Kanye West and others all in their prime. Nelly wasn't just dominating the charts against some guys that blew up over night on soundcloud. Each of these men is a legend as well.

Now, can we talk about Nelly's influence on hip hop beyond just the music? Remember when Everyone was wearing 12XL T-Shirts? What was Nelly doing? He had switched from throwback jerseys to suits. What happened? Other artists followed. Soon Jay Z was wearing button down suits, P Diddy switched the focus of his Sean John clothing line to suits and ties from denim jackets.

Kendrick Lamar recently had an iconic album cover for To Pimp a Butterfly that saw him and his friends outside The White House. What if I told you Nelly had a similar cover all the way back at the start of his career? If you've never bought a physical album before 2010 you probably don't know that some would come with various inlays and alternate covers you can swap around. For Nelly, one of those covers saw him and his friend standing at the St. Louis Arch in a similar manner as Kendric and his. I'm not saying Kendrick got the inspiration for his cover from Nelly or that they're exactly, but I am saying it's similar. That's not to throw any dirt or Kendrick or anything, because if I was gonna do that I'd write about everyone who put a baby picture on their album cover since Illmatic.

A lot of people make the Drake and Nelly comparison and it's just wrong. Nelly isn't the most lyrical rapper, but he does write his own music and will never refuse when asked to freestyle. Nelly and Drake may have both sold a lot of records, but Nelly did it by remaining true to where he was from. He never switched styles back and forth to whatever was big at the time to remain popular. Nelly did it all by just being himself. Drake is doing this thing where he's trying to be a gangster rapper now, Nelly never did that. Nelly is a goofball, and he doesn't hide it, in fact he embraces it. In his music he even talks about no longer selling drugs and how he can just relax now. He's not forcing himself to be hard to shake a goofball image. His song Ride Wit Me is a perfect example where he stops in the middle of this song celebrating his rise to fame to state:

It feel strange now, making a living off my brain, instead of 'caine now. I got the title from my momma put the whip in my own name now, damn shit done changed now. Running credit checks with no shame now.

That's a far cry from Drake who waited until he was already famous from both acting and rapping to drop lyrics like:

Brand new Beretta, can't wait to let it go, walk up in my label like, where the check though? Yeah, I said it, wouldn't dap you with the left hoe. Shut the fuck up, text from a centerfold, I ain't reply, let her know I read it though

The one Nelly song you can compare to Drake's career is probably Over and Over with Tim McGraw which just shows another way that Nelly pioneered the game. It's just a cool song that didn't have any of the other BS that usually happens when country singers link up with rappers. Remember LL Cool J and Brad Paisly tried to follow with Accidental Racist? Which brings up another point.

Nelly went to Ferguson because it was his state and he wanted to see what was going on. He didn't make a scene and he quietly stood back in the crowd walking with protesters. Someone saw Nelly in the crowd and called him out for being there the crowd split and he was caught like a deer in headlights as the mic was thrown into his hands. He was forced to say things on the spot and he was criticized for not having a speech prepared when he wasn't going to give one. This made a lot of people wrongfully criticize Nelly. But the same people cheered when Drake told Meek Mill:

Cops are killing people with they arms up, and your main focus is tryna harm us? And you think you ‘bout to starve us?

To his credit, Nelly continued to speak out against police violence and has been much more prepared when you see him in recent interviews or at events. He never got a song and told one of the most charitable rappers in the game (Look it up, Meek donates a lot to charity) who also speaks out about police brutality in his music (again, look it up) to worry about police instead. Drake is out here using it as a punchline and that's just something Nelly wouldn't do. Please, let this be an end to the Drake and Nelly comparisons forever.

There's also this idea that Nelly can't be a legend because he's not the best in any technical category of hip hop and that's just not true. Hip hop is a lot like movies, there can be movies that aren't great in any category but overall they're still great movies that go on to become timeless classics. There's no reason that we should ignore Nelly's dominance of the rap scene just because he wasn't super technical. The same people that complain about Tip Drill being six minutes of the same 4 sentences will call Future great for releasing the same album six times.

No, Nelly is not the best rapper ever. He's got really high stats in flow and versatility but he's not leading the league in anything. But, he's still a really good rapper. Reggie Miller, is a great NBA player and Basketball Hall of Fame member. Reggie Miller never got an NBA Championship. Nelly is Reggie Miller. Nelly never gets that legend status he deserves. During the prime of his career the beginning was dominated by artists like Nas and Jay Z. Reggie's was dominated by players like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Towards the end of Nelly's prime it was dominated by artists like Lil Wayne and T.I. For Reggie the end of his prime was dominated by players like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Is Reggie Miller not a legend?

I'm not saying you need to put a crown on Nelly. I'm not saying all of his albums should be on repeat. But, I am saying he doesn't get the respect he deserves in a lot of hip hop circles.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim

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