'Brass Knuckles' may not land a hit
Nelly was a hitmaker back when rappers were rewarded for making hits. In 2000, he turned a jump-rope rhyme into the No. 1 rap record in the country ("Country Grammar"), and then built on that to sell 15 million copies of his debut of the same name.
"Hot in Herre" and "Dilemma" gave him two No. 1 songs on the same album and made his sophomore release, "Nellyville," a Grammy winner that went 10 times platinum.
Today he's releasing his fifth album, "Brass Knuckles," four years after dropping two separate albums on the same day and watching them debut at No. 1 and No. 2 on the Billboard charts. It had to be the biggest practical joke ever pulled on SoundScan, but "Suit" moved 5 million units and another 4 million people bought "Sweat."
He's back with a body seemingly chiseled from the same stone that got 50 Cent investigated and Barry Bonds blackballed from baseball, blog buzz about a rumored relationship with R&B star Ashanti, and a cameo list ranging from Chuck D to Fergie.
The problem is that he may not have brought a No. 1 record with him. "Brass Knuckles" is 14 songs long. All of them could be singles. None of them could be hits. Each one is tightly produced, whether it's the mimicry of pianos and heavy thump that Dr. Dre made specifically for the West Coast on "LA," or it's "Party People," which feels prepackaged for clubs with frantic synths and Fergie's appearance. He makes a heartfelt effort and addresses social issues alongside Chuck D on "Self Esteem." The playboy humor is at the forefront of tracks like "Lie," a song about lying to a girl about another girl, then taking that lie to the grave, and everything about "Long Night" oozes R&B seduction.
But four years is a long time to be gone. The market he had essentially cornered since 2000 was in middle school the last time he released a record. The genre has morphed into this landscape where rappers are singers, and after years of taking the blame (see "Over and Over" with Tim McGraw), Nelly's actually starting to take credit for those changes.
At the same time, he's changed. The easiest thing to lose sight of is how much money he managed to make off rap, but he was the quintessential pre-iTunes hitmaker. In his time away, Nelly has become a businessman, revitalizing downtown St. Louis, his hometown, buying part of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats.
Combine those things with the death of his sister in 2005 (he recorded a song for her but said he wasn't ready to put it on the album), and it's hard to imagine the 33-year-old rapper being in the same mind state as he was when he first jumped into the picture. He sees himself the same way people see Jay-Z, a rapper who made a killing off making hits. Now he's on his victory lap trying to figure out what to do with it all. 