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He's A Little Bit Country
07/13/2000 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
James Carter
Despite the emergence of New Orleans as a rap hot spot during the '90s, few new voices have emerged from non-traditional hip-hop locales. But with a single ("Country Grammar") making major noise and a style that puts a somewhat new twist on the bounce sound, rapper Nelly is staking a claim on the hip-hop landscape for St. Louis, Mo.
Being the first artist to bust out of his city, however, has been both a blessing and curse for Nelly. "I think being the first from here to hit big made things a lot harder, because everyone is skeptical," he explains. "People are skeptical. The fans hear our music and ask, 'Where's that from?' The industry is obviously skeptical, because it took us this long to get the deal."
The "us" to which Nelly often refers are the St. Lunatics, a four-man crew that the 20-year-old MC has been down with since high school. "We been rapping since '93 or '94. And we've been throwing ourselves at labels since '96, telling them, 'Check this out, check this out.' We were just looked over," Nelly sighs. "But I think right now in the rap game it's about new sh-t, and it's about different sh-t. So it's easier because my sound is new, and it's fresh, and nobody's ever done it, and it's from somewhere that nobody ever expected."
Nelly says the six long years it took for him to get his record deal gave him time to refine his "country grammar," a lyrical style that draws on St. Louis's unique slanguage. "My outlook on my music has been the same over the years," Nelly says. "But just like anything, you mature and you look at things differently when you get older. We have a different sound, a unique sound. We were trying to find that sound over the years and get comfortable on the mic. Because when you're on the mic, it's got to be natural. There's nothing you can turn off and on. It ain't nothing you can fake. It's got to be natural."
As the years passed, record labels finally began scouring cities other than L.A. and New York in search of new talent, and that's when Nelly got his break. "It's to the point that, with a lot of the success of people outside the West and East Coasts, people are expanding and opening up their minds, and the rap game has just expanded so much that you see different opinions, different views," he declares.
Despite the fact that Nelly is enjoying his newfound success, he stresses that life experience has taught him to keep things in perspective. "Being where I'm from, you can never be too sure about things," he cautions. "There's always a lot of promises and a lot of hope, but when you're from here, a lot of things seem to fall through. So I'm still at that point where I don't know if I've made it yet. That's why I still don't see this as a career, because I know I'm hot right now, but there's a lot more to this. I'm just five percent into it, and I've got, like, 95 percent to go."
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