It wasn’t a surprise when “Country Grammar” — released in February of 2000 — made Nelly one of music’s first new stars of the 21st century.
The St. Louis rapper’s debut single combined a trunk-rattling beat with schoolyard rhymes, building an ideal playground for a midwestern artist with a distinctly melodic drawl.
“Country Grammar” was a global smash, and the album that followed remains among the best-selling in hip-hop history.
But what was a surprise — to Nelly, at least — was one market that his music played incredibly well in. He got a sense of it on his earliest tours, when he’d find himself booked at festivals headlined not by rappers, but by country stars.
“We were just happy to be there,” Nelly recalls with a laugh. “We didn’t care. It’s packed, the check cleared, so we rock it out.”
“A couple years later, (I thought), ‘Wow, this is something that I don’t think I should be ignoring, because I don’t think everybody gets this type of support.’ I always wanted to understand what that love was that I was being shown.”
Over the last two decades, Nelly has figured it out, with work that has increasingly highlighted the ties between hip-hop, R&B and country. In 2004, he brought Tim McGraw to the rap airwaves with their collaboration “Over and Over.” A decade later, it was Nelly crashing the country world with a chart-topping remix of Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise”
Now, the crossovers have culminated with Nelly’s eighth album, the country-inspired “Heartland.” He sees it as “showing love to a world, to a whole genre of music that’s been riding for Nelly since my first album.”
And 21 years later, he’s able to play in that world with a class of country performers that have a similar musical vocabulary — in part, because they grew up listening to him.
“He’s one of the first artists to really combine hip hop and country in a way that works,” says Breland, who’s done the same with recent genre-blending hits “My Truck” and “Throw It Back”.
“As someone who’s kind of one of his musical descendants in a way, to have music with him, and to be a part of this project in particular, it’s been really gratifying for me.”
Along with his Florida Georgia Line buddies, “Heartland” includes collaborations with crossover star Kane Brown, as well as country-rap fusionists Blanco Brown (“The Git-Up”) and country mainstay Darius Rucker.
Breland and Blanco Brown join Nelly on one of the album’s highlights, “High Horse.” With a stomping groove that blurs the lines between The Gap Band and Alabama, Nelly manages to namecheck both Nudie’s Honky Tonk in Nashville and Magic City — an Atlanta “gentlemen’s club” that looms large in the rap world — in a single verse.
Work on “Heartland” began in Nashville before the pandemic, and its songs, apparently, came quickly. Breland recalls that both “High Horse” and the Kane Brown feature “Grits and Glamour” were written in a single night.
“Lil’ bit hood, lil’ country/That’s just why she love me, ” Nelly and Brown sing on “Grits.”
The chemistry found on “Heartland” is on full display with the latest episode of “CMT Crossroads,” which see Nelly and most of his album collaborators sharing the stage for a concert special.
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Along with the album tracks, it’s especially powerful to see Nelly lead Breland, Blanco Brown and Kane Brown on “Country Grammar” — a scene you couldn’t have pictured in the country world less than a decade ago.
“Evolution is inevitable,” Nelly says. “…Every other music has been invaded by hip hop and it’s hard for some people to accept it. But if you try to understand and work with it, it’ll be better for you than trying to put it away. Because it’s not going anywhere.”
“I can definitely hear, and I’m thankful as hell, man, that people appreciated my thoughts and my creativity, and feel that I added something to this game.”
This week, “Heartland” has debuted at No. 7 on Billboard’s Country Albums Chart — a first for Nelly.
CMT Crossroads: Nelly and Friends
“CMT Crossroads: Nelly and Friends” re-airs Friday at 9 p.m. CT on CMT Music, and later that night at 11 p.m. CT on BET.
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