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At a Quik-Stop gas station, a young, mustachioed, long-haired black man dressed baggily in red slowly approaches the white van. "Y'all be careful out there on the road," he says, leaning in through the open door. "The police like pulling over brothers out here in Nebraska." Inside, behind the tinted windows, Nelly , 21, and his crew - co-rappers Kyjuan, 21, and Murphy Lee, 18; hype man Slo Down, 23; their road manager, Keith; and Boo, their security guard - nod their thanks. "Omaha ain't quite there yet," the guy continues, "but come back and see us; it gonna be tight."
The hip-hop nation has truly arrived everywhere - even the outskirts of the Midwest (any day now, expect a Canadian gangsta, eh?) - and out here, Nelly is a regional hero. During a short pre-show trip to the mall (the "white mall," as Chris Rock would call it), Nelly was very politely mobbed at the food court. While trying to scarf down a piece of pizza, he dutifully signed napkins and plates, as the entire staffs of Orange Julius and Pretzel Time deserted their posts to get close to him. He's the first rapper from St. Louis to hit it big (unless anyone really remembers Domino), boasting a debut album that has gone three times platinum since its June release.
The high numbers come from the title track, "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)," a singsong jam with a hook based on a jump-rope rhyme coupled with Little Anthony and the Imperials' "Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop." Nelly and his crew have been touring the country, visiting nearly every state (including two shows in Anchorage, Alaska), to support an album that their label, Universal, had little intention of promoting. And all this before the release of a second single. The record stayed at Number One on Billboard's album chart for five consecutive weeks, moving a brisk 200,000 or so copies a week. "Country Grammar" was voted Best Summer Jam on BET, and Nelly has already made plans for a full-scale tour in November.
Nelly has turned what until now was a disadvantage - a Midwestern regional identity - into gold. St. Louis is both Midwestern and Southern, letting Nelly tap a new sound that combines the bounce and musicality of the Dirty South with the fresh flow of the middle states. "Our boy Ali got us thinking when we started to get this together," Nelly recalls. "He said, 'Rap is twenty-plus years old. Ain't nothing being said that ain't been said.' Everybody's rapped about politics, the struggle, money, ho's, everything. So it's all how you shoot it now. It's about how you say it, because there ain't nothing new you can say. You got to be straight original. You got to catch people by surprise." He has, making music that emancipates hip-hop heads in states like Iowa from the traditions of the East and West Coasts. He is the first rap act they can call their own - and they've responded in kind at record stores across the Plains.
But Nelly and his crew have hardly had time to celebrate their success, or even notice it; they discovered they were voted BET's Best Summer Jam because Murphy Lee skipped the trip to the mall to watch a little TV. This afternoon, they wake up and have to load themselves into a van to be driven 100 miles to Sioux City, on the Iowa border, for their next show. They sit munching Krispy Kremes and drinking soda and juice, clearing the cobwebs left by the after-party following the show here in Omaha last night.
The van hits the highway, and the first of three blunts that will be puffed on the way to Sioux City is twisted up. Talk turns to the mob of women that came back to the motel last night. "Them two skinny girls was crackheads," says Slo Down, in his deep, gravelly whisper. "They was sisters."
"No ass at all," says Nelly, disgusted. "I couldn't do nothing but yo' head, baby. If I grabbed her ass, I'd a been liable to jump."
"They just wanted to play in the hallway, anyway," Murphy Lee says. "I went in my room, and they wouldn't. Fuck that."
"Hey, Slo, what about that Puerto Rican girl and that black girl?" asks the mountainous Boo from the front seat.
"Salsa and Chocolate?" he answers. "They was like, 'We can flow; we've got to meet Nelly and rap for him. We love his music.' So I said, 'Here, talk to his manager.'"
Murphy Lee stares out the window. "I'm tired of losing plasma on nobodies," he says distractedly. "I'd rather be by myself."
"Mo, I'm tired of fucking," Nelly howls from the very back seat, using the St. Louis slang (Mo, as in the abbreviation for Missouri) for homey. "Straight up. Sometime a nigga just want to sleep! When we started out, it used to be two, three bitches a night. Take one in the room, put her out, take another in, put her out. Now it's one, and I go to sleep. I pass right out - jewelry on, nigga." He reaches for the heavy platinum and diamond pieces around his neck to emphasize his point. His speaking voice is rough and rapid; in contrast to the slow-roll, stretched-consonant, easygoing conversational style of his Mo's, Nelly is a verbal Tasmanian devil. "Soon as those bitches roll over, I pop awake,"
[Excerpt From Issue 853 — November 9, 2000]