Nelly: Too Hot for the Charts

Nelly is perhaps one of the top performing rap acts to come out of the Midwest. Heck, let's be honest. Whatever words you might have against his commercial success, he was one of the top selling raps acts to come out of anywhere, anytime. Amazingly, you would think Nelly was around for a long time, considering all of the big hits that he had. But all of those songs and awards and sales all came within really just one four-year period from 2000 to 2004.

That's not to say that Nelly was nothing before he went big. He actually was part of the group called the St. Lunatics, which was making people dance and nod their heads locally long before Nelly got big on the national stage. One big Nelly song from the St. Lunatics days came in 1996, "Gimme What You Got."

But despite their local presence in St. Louis, the St. Lunatics couldn't get signed by a major record label. So they employed a very ingenious marketing technique, which is really the inverse of what Wu-Tang did, but similar to what the D12 did with Eminem. Knowing that Nelly would have a far greater chance of big time success rather than the group, the St. Lunatics sent him off as a solo act, with the goal being he would get signed, get famous, and then bring the rest of the group along with him on his coattails.

The Plan Works

Rap groups, listen up. To what? To that fact that the St. Lunatics plan worked. Nelly soon got signed by a major record label in 2000, Universal. You know, of Universal Theme Parks? They released his first Nelly album that year, called "Country Grammar," and the Nelly song of the same name was just one reason the record went all the way to number three. Other Nelly songs included "Batter Up" and "Ride Wit Me."

By the following year, Nelly was back recording with St. Lunatics, and in 2001, they released their group album "Free City," and that strategy paid off with another hit single, "Midwest Swing."

Nelly went solo again in 2002 with the release of "Nellyville." That went number one, thanks to Nelly tracks like "Hot in Herre," which had enormous cross-cultural appeal and had white folks and black folks from coast to coast yelling out loud on the dance floor how they were going to take their clothes off. You can say what you want, but Nelly lyrics have an infectious, danceable quality that anybody could appreciate. On the album, not only did he work with St. Lunatics, but also Justin Timberlake and Destiny's Child.

Big Time and a Sneaker

For Nelly, 2003 was a high water mark. He scored two Grammy awards, and even got a sneaker deal with Nike to release the "Air Derrty." He then got another deal with Reebok. By 2004, he was winning another Grammy with P. Diddy, for their work on "Shake Ya Tailfeather."

Also in that year, he released not one, but two, Nelly albums. The first called "Suit," was more of a R&B record than a rap thing. It went to number one, while his other record, "Sweat," was number two. He then topped off a good couple of years by being in the 2005 movie "The Longest Yard."

But Nelly is not done yet. A 2008 Nelly record, "Brass Knuckle," is due out in the late summer of this year.

From Nelly to Hip Hop Music