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MTV: You haven't always lived in St. Louis. Tell us about your background.

Nelly: I was born in Texas. I was always moving around. It wasn't like I stayed in one spot for too long. I've been to, like, eight different schools. Four of them, I kind of got booted out a little bit. Another four came from just moving around, switching different families. [I've] always been kind of on my own, but not on my own. It helped me to rely on myself a lot. I talked to myself a lot -- you know, I ain't crazy or nothing -- but kind of like, "All right, Nelly, what was really going on?" I gotta sit back and talk to myself and reflect, 'cause I kind of feel like that's all I got. But I love my mom, my father. I got family behind me. Support, no doubt. But it's just some things you like to talk to yourself about, that you just can't [tell] other people. That's what I do. When I moved around a lot, moving from Texas to Spain... I don't really remember too much about Spain. I probably remember one thing. Like "uno, dos," that's probably about it. But I was real young. Then we moved to St. Louis, and then my parents got divorced. I was kind of split between them families like that, and then moving around amongst friends and family, and I was just always on the go. It reflects in my music too, [in] the way I like to do different styles and come off on different songs. It's like the different moods I was in. It's like life, you know? It's the way I was feeling at a young age.

MTV: And today you have a deal with Universal Records. How did you come to decide on a solo deal as opposed to getting the group signed?

Nelly: Well, it wasn't my idea, it was a group idea. We sat down, and I want to tell everybody it's not Nelly and The St. Lunatics, its Nelly from The St. Lunatics, 'cause I'm still in the group, always will be in the group, started in the group, and I ain't never leaving the group. But it was something that we all decided on, as far as timing, I guess my sound, just the way I like to do things... 'cause everybody's different in the group. You'll see that when the group album comes out, and when other guys, other members of the group, get a chance to do their solo projects. You'll definitely feel the difference and you'll be able to be like, "Oh, OK, Murphy Lee is different from Nelly. Big Lee is different from Murphy. Kyjuan is definitely off the rack." Everybody's different in that aspect, so I think it was just more or less the timing for me. Everybody decided, "OK, Nelly, we just gonna give you everybody's support, we just gonna get behind you, we just gonna push you through the door." Flat out. And here I am. It's definitely love, and it's the Lunatics for life.

MTV: I've heard that you consider your style to be kind of like a jazz form of hip-hop.

Nelly: It's like St. Louis blues, for sure. We definitely had that influence down there, 'cause it's definitely a soulful place. If you go down there, we've got soul food restaurants, and you can just feel that when you get there. You can just feel the people, 'cause everybody knows everybody. It's a big city, a little bit, but it's a small city in that everybody knows you. If you're doing something, they know what you're doing. If you're big, they know what you're doing. If you're big and you fell off, they know you. We just kind of incorporated that, 'cause it's just our home and it's just the way we feel.

MTV: When was "Country Grammar" actually first released?

Nelly: We made "Country Grammar" about a year ago. Underground St. Louis. It be bangin' down there for a minute in the clubs and just getting a few spins every now and then on the radio when I could talk to some of the DJs to help me get it going. But just in the clubs, like a year and a half ago, it's been bangin'. It's kind of old to us, but it's kind of new again, because [of] the video and all the good notoriety we been getting and the good publicity. We kind of, like, recycled the song down, so it's all gravy. It's just been love from East to West, everywhere we go.

MTV: Your album's been in the Top 5 ever since its release. What're your thoughts on that, man?

Nelly: Oh, man, we've just been thankful for it. Just trying to take everything in stride, and everything's happening so fast right now that I ain't even had time to reflect on that. I know it's there, so it's all good.

MTV Radio: Tell us what "Country Grammar" is all about.

Nelly: I'm basically representing for everybody [in the] Midwest, South... everybody with that slur on their English, or everybody with that pronunciation that sounds a little off. Right now, I'm just representing for everybody to know that that's cool right now. Let everybody jump on that bandwagon, for sure.


MTV: You're on a mission to put St. Louis on the map, as far as music is concerned.

Nelly: That is a mission in itself. Just bringing St. Louis to the [forefront], 'cause there's a lot of people who don't even know where St. Louis is. I'm looking on [the MTV studio] wall now, and I'm seeing a lot of [license] plates, but I don't see any Missouri plates, so it's all gravy. I'm hoping we can get the notoriety for now, but St. Louis is our foundation. No matter what we do right now, we always can fall back on the Lou', 'cause they've been loving us. They've been holding us up for so long. Any time we go down, they can give us that boost to come back up, and I think everybody needs that. Lock down home first, 'cause that's very important, we think.

Nelly: It's like we're crying out for our time to shine right now. We've been doing it for a while. It ain't that, "Well, they finally got something hot." It's always been hot acts in St. Louis. It's just that people [are] going down there, taking the time to recognize and take a look and see what's really going on. We've just been building up and building up to this point to where now we're screaming with our heads cut off. We're really feeling ourselves down there in St. Louis, and I ain't talking about me. I'm talking about the whole St. Lou' right now. It's all love down there. It's "Country Grammar"-ed out down there, and I love 'em, man. I love 'em. For sure.

MTV: Who are some of your influences?

Nelly: We get what's hot on the East, we get what's hot on the West, we definitely get what's hot on the South and Midwest, for sure. We try to combine that, 'cause we've got a lot of rap acts in St. Louis. A lot of people take more or less to the West Coast side of things; we got some people who take to the Southern side of things, some people take to the East Coast side of things. 'Cause that's like when a group comes out in St. Louis, you don't really know what it's gonna sound like, for real, until you hear them, 'cause people take from all different sides. I listen to everybody from 2Pac, Biggie... when you say L.L., man, you know that's a big influence right there. Snoop, Goodie M.O.B., Outkast. We just pump it all right there. If it's hot, it's definitely in St. Louis. You don't know what's hot, you come to St. Louis, 'cause it's like in the middle, so you gonna hear it all. Our radio stations play it all, 'cause we don't have a lot of independent music that we're playing on our radio. Now I've got a couple of songs. We've got a couple of independent labels that's getting a few more spins now because of the success that we're having, so to speak. It's opening up our radio stations to be like, "OK, well, let's play more of our own music a little more." But we still bump a lot of stuff from other regions and other areas.

MTV: And two guys from The St. Lunatics do production on your album.

Nelly: My man Jay E [Jason Epperson], he's been with us since '96 when we did the "Gimme What Ya Got" track that was big in St. Louis. He did that track. My little brother, City Spud, he did four tracks on that album, and Jay E did the rest of them. Except for one. My man Stevie Blast [Steve "Blast" Wills] did the "Batter Up" track. But other than that we kept everything in house, 'cause we work well together. If I feel something should be in a beat or something, if I'm feeling it -- maybe anything from a clang to a high hat, I doesn't make a difference -- they feed off of that. There are some producers that are gonna be like, "Look, look, let me do the beat. You stick to rapping." But they take well off, and they take our comments and our suggestions and they coincide with what we trying to do to, as far as hoppin' on it lyrically.