How Nelly’s legendary debut was censored and sent him on a new path: “It was made strictly for St Louis”
Nelly took the music industry by storm in 2000 with his debut album, Country Grammar. The project welcomed listeners into his St. Louis world with hits like ‘E.I.’ and ‘Ride wit Me’, but it was the first single that set him on a new path through its censoring.
The title track, ‘Country Grammar (Hot Shit)’, was a chart success, peaking at number seven on both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart, but it didn’t hit the airwaves without a little fixing up. The clean version of the track back masks the word “shit” and bleeps out various words not appropriate for the radio.
In addition, the words “street sweeper baby cocked” are replaced with “boom boom baby” due to its drive-by shooting references, with “street sweeper” meaning an automatic shotgun. However, this didn’t stop Nelly from achieving mainstream success. It did the opposite. Country Grammar reached number one on the Billboard 200, with his following three albums, Nellyville, Sweat and Suit, also dominating the top two spots.
In the the first verse of ‘Hot Shit’, he raps, “Mmmm, you can find me in St Louis rollin’ on dubs/ Smokin’ on dubs in clubs, blowin’ up like Cocoa Puffs/ Sippin’ Bud’, gettin’ perved and gettin’ dubbed/ Daps and hugs, mean mugs and shoulder shrugs.” The song was produced by Jason ‘Jay E’ Epperson and includes a reference to Beenie Man’s ‘Who Am I (Sim Simma)’ with the line, “Keys to my beemer, man, holla at Beenie Man.”
Nelly once called ‘Country Grammar (Hot Shit)’ one of his favourite songs, stating it reminds him of home. “That’s why it’s one of my favourite records,” he told NME. “My songs are like children – I love ‘em all but this one’s special because I had to fight the label so hard for it to be my first single. I wrote it before I had a record deal, before I knew that the rest of the world would get a chance to hear it.
“It was made strictly for St Louis – and it was really hard to get a record that everybody in St Louis appreciated. Nobody from St Louis had ever been on the type of level that we wound up being on. So for that song to introduce me to the world was very special.”
The music video for the song was also iconic. In it, Nelly raps around various places in his hometown, including the Gateway Arch and Lafayette Square. Another local rapper, Chingy, also makes an appearance, along with the St Lunatics.
When making the album, Nelly was trying to get signed. Still, he didn’t lose any creative control, keeping things strictly St. Louis. The songs he played for label executives were the same ones that ended up being singles and achieving much of his success.
“Creating the album was almost like me trying to get signed,” he told Complex. “That’s the big story that I take from it, because I always say: it’s expression, but it’s also somebody’s opinion. Just because your sound isn’t hot at that second doesn’t mean that your sound is not the future. I had four demo songs that I would go around and play for people, and I would send them to different record labels.
“All four of my demo songs were all four singles off of Country Grammar. So it’s kind of hard if somebody [who heard the demo] says, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember him, but he didn’t have those songs.’ No, those were the exact same songs I played.”