Last week I met with Nelly at his Skybox restaurant on Laclede's Landing to talk about Brass Knuckles, his upcoming fifth studio album. We'll be unrolling these videos for the rest of the week, so stay tuned for more chatter about Kanye West, the state of hip-hop, the latest on the St. Lunatics and more. (For more segments of the interview, click here.)
"(With the Web), you kind of miss that experience of going to the store and waiting for the artist's record to come out...and you have those in-stores where the artists are there...that's part of the experience. And now, you kind of don't do that, because you can be walking on your way to work, hit a button or two, and -- deet -- download a person's album or download the song you want. I'm glad I come from the CD era. More or less, our parents came from the record era."
"(On Brass Knuckles), I'm not really going around punching people in they face. It was the best way I thought I could explain how hard this album would hit...Of course the song I did with Usher, the ladies I think are definitely going love that one. But the album is a little more...my nephew would call it a little more Country Grammar-ish."
"We are the pop music. We are the most popular music on the planet. Kids grow up now and it's all they know, hip hop. So it's up to us to bring the influences...of rock...country music...it's up to us."
"(In) the urban community, no one has done it. No one has said, "'Yo brother it's cool to play that set of drums...and you can still be B-Boy.'"
