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Nelly Talks ‘Brass Knuckles’ And Air Jordans

In the here-today-gone-tomorrow DNA of the current rap game, you’re only as good as your last hit. And Nelly hasn’t put out an album since he doubled up with Sweat/Suit back in 2004.

The rapper, who Jay-Z tipped his Yankee fitted to for being one of the only dudes to move units, looks to keep his selling streak alive, despite the fact that his latest effort Brass Knuckles (which finally hits stores today) has been pushed back several times since it’s original 2007 release date. Complex had a chance to speak with Nelly about the new album, how Chicago artists rank compared to St. Louis, his Jordan connect and his new gig modelin’ threads for Diddy. Read up…

Interview By Joe La Puma

Complex: What can fans expect on Brass Knuckles?

Nelly: A lot of energy man, cause it’s my fifth album so we’re trying to make sure that we cover all bases. I called the album that [Brass Knuckles] because it’s the best way I can describe how I feel the album will hit people. I did a lot of work with other artists on it, probably more so than I have any other project. I’m at a point where I love collaborating with people and coming up and breaking new ground so the album is hot. I got a lot of good people on there so I can’t wait for it.

Complex: How do you respond to people questioning your relevance in the game because you’ve been away for a while?

Nelly: People doubted me from the beginning. People always doubt me. I’m used to that. That’s not a problem. I’ve never had people say, “Yo, he’s gonna do this,” or, “Yo, he’s gonna do that.” They never did that, on any project. Never. All I care about is the people that support me. Especially in an age where nobody’s really buying into the artist, they’re just buying songs. You’re only going to survive basically with your loyal and your true fans.

Complex: The Forbes list just came out a few weeks ago and you are one of hip-hops healthy sellers, does it bother you that you weren’t on it?

Nelly: If you check last year, I wasn’t on that one. [Laughs.] If you check the year before that one I wasn’t on that one. If you check the year before that one I wasn’t on that one I don’t think. I think they estimated one year that I made it, but I don’t report all that. I don’t report it.

Complex: What new ventures are you looking into?

Nelly: I just try to get in things that make sense for me. I’ve done quite a bit of real estate stuff in St. Louis. I own a city block in downtown St. Louis, that I just recently purchased about a year ago, and I have a sports bar in part of it, called Sky Box. It’s just a thing where I like to open up businesses that fit the mold of what it is that I’m doing. I also acquired the license for Troop, so I’m re-launching that clothing line that was real popular back in the ’80s. We’re just trying to make things happen on a different level.

Complex: What’s the deal with the Sean John ads?

Nelly: I did one for my man Puffy. He’s a cool dude.

Complex: How long are you locked into that? Is it just one season, or were you guys going to talk about expanding that?

Nelly: Nah, it’s a thing where Puff is my man. He wanted to do something that we thought would be special. He wanted to launch something, and I had an album coming out, and we thought that it would be a good thing for both sides. Puffy is a real, real good friend of mine. It’s very rare that you could have people that you can call directly when you have a problem and things of that nature. When I was trying to get Apple Bottoms off the ground, he would give me advice, and lead me in the right direction. He had Sean John, he had things poppin’ off, and he didn’t really have to do that, and I thought that was real hot. It meant a lot to me. Obviously we handle business, it’s not a thing where Nelly is officially a Sean John model, I just did an ad.

Complex: Chicago is popping right now. Kanye, Lupe, Common, etc. Why don’t you think St. Louis has fully blown up in the same way?

Nelly: You know what? You can say that, but to me all those artists that you name, St. Louis has outsold all of them. You look at Chingy, he may not be as popular, but he’s outsold Lupe. You look at Kanye, he may be more popular but he hasn’t outsold Nelly. You can look at the other cats that you named, Common, but he hasn’t outsold J-Kwon. It’s just one of those things where, in all the artists that you name, I’m fans of. I love Lupe, I love Common, love, I love Kanye. I think certain people get certain times, or their moments, and they get a chance to prove themselves in a different aspect.

Complex: Right.

Nelly: You know, so I don’t think it’s a thing where we haven’t got our just due, it’s Chicago’s time right now. And they’re getting their shot to do it, but you look at St. Louis when St. Louis gets its shot, they sell records. You know, Chingy’s probably about 8 million, over his last couple of records. J-Kwon, he sold over a million records. I love the Midwest as a whole, you know, and I don’t try to separate it, I just see it as the South, they do their thing, and the West gets their shot.

C: We have a large sneaker head following, so let’s talk about “Stepped On My J’z.” How involved was the brand in that song?

Nelly: I had a real good rapport with Brand Jordan before the song, like, years ago. It was a thing to where me and Jermaine Dupri were talking about it one day in the studio, and thought it would be hot because, we’re from that Jordan era. When Jordans used to come out in the past, they would come out on a weekday and we would skip school and be at the mall, we would be there along with two to three other thousand kids [Laughs] waiting to get these damn sneakers when they came out. Jordan Brand was very helpful and they got us, they made sure we had everything we needed and wanted as far as making sure the song and the visual was taken in the right way.

Complex: Now, how do you think you rank among sneaker-headed celebrities? You know…Bow Wow’s putting videos up with his exclusives…

Nelly: I think I’m pretty far up there, um, you know, I don’t know if I’m in the top two or three but I’m definitely among there in the top five. Definitely, when it comes to the Jordans.

Complex: What’s your favorite Jordan ever made?

Nelly: I like the III; I love the XI—the ones that he wore in Space Jam with the patent leather toe. Those are probably my favorite, I couldn’t believe those when they came out because I never seen that done before. You know, the patent leather like that, [Laughs] it was like, wow, those are so shiny!

Complex: Before your connect how much of a hassle was it to get Js?

Nelly: Well, I couldn’t afford ‘em. All the Jordans I used to have previously were second hand used Jordans. It was probably because I got them from, you know, maybe a friend, they were old, or I got them from family members. I wasn’t able to get my own pair of Jordans till I was basically in high school. And I could scrape up the money and save up the money because I knew they were coming out. I was like borrowing lunch money and I’m just saving it and waitin’. [Laughs.] I remember getting a pair of Jordans from a friend of mine and they were like a ten, and that was back when I was thirteen, and I wear size nine and a half now. [Laughs]

Complex: So you were just wearing regardless of what size they were, you were just wearing them to wear ‘em?

Nelly: Oh yeah! I would put three or four soles in ‘em and some tissue up at the top and I would wear ‘em, if you could believe that.