Biography - Nelly

Hailing from St. Louis, Cornell Haynes Jr., aka Nelly, has looked past labels and brought pop to hip-hop and rap to country.  With a trademark band-aid on his cheek and stunning good looks, Nelly made his presence known in 2000 with his debut album, Country Grammar.  Chockfull of irresistible hooks and clever lyrics delivered with a laidback style, Nelly’s first offering to the masses was a huge success, selling over 8 million copies.

Born on November 2, 1974, Nelly showed great promise as a baseball player, but his first real attempt at fame was with his close childhood friends and the rap group, St. Lunatics.  After several failed attempts to land a record deal, in 1996 the group disbanded, and Nelly went solo.  It proved to be a fortuitous decision.

Nelly continued to perform solo, and eventually he attracted attention from record producers at Universal. In 2000, Nelly’s first album, Country Grammar, was released.  The album didn’t reflect any of the styles coming from the East or West Coast rappers at the time, and Nelly’s unique delivery and cunning play on words and the local St. Louis dialect brought him fans yearning for a new voice in hip-hop.

Still loyal to his friends in the St. Lunatics, Nelly reunited the band in 2001, and together they released the album, Free City, which included the hit single, “Midwest Swing.”  Although Country Grammar was a hit, Nelly still had a lot to prove if he was to live up to his self-proclaimed number one status.  In the summer of 2002, Nelly backed up his words with action and released his second solo album, Nellyville.

By any standard, Nellyville was a huge success.  Within one week of its release, Nellyville held the number one spot in ten Billboard categories.  The album eventually went platinum six times over and earned Nelly a Grammy nomination for best rap album.

In 2004 Nelly followed up on Nellyville’s success with the double album Sweat and Suit.  Sweat was a rap album that went to number two on the Billboard charts, and Suit, an R&B album, which features an unlikely duet with Tim McGraw, debuted at number one.  Keeping in line with Nelly’s long line of successes, in 2005, the single “Grillz,” which features Paul Wall, was released and went to number one on the Billboard charts.