Heating up `Nellyville': rap superstar Nelly talks about lighting up the charts and chillin' at home in St. Louis - Entertainment

Ebony, Sept, 2002 by Lisa Jones Townsel

ANYONE who knows anything about hip-hop artist Nelly knows that he reigns from St. Louis. He raps and sings about the city, with songs on his debut, Country Grammar, directly reflecting the city's urban core. Around his neck he wears a diamond-encrusted St. Louis Rams medallion. His group, the St. Lunatics, is named after the city. He even posed in front of the famous Gateway Arch for his debut CD cover.

His sophomore album, the highly anticipated Nellyville, shipped platinum in June. It contains the No. 1 single "Hot in Herre." Based on the buzz, brisk record sales and demands from fans, this CD too will be a runaway success for Nelly and his hometown. "Country Grammar was different," he says of the recordings. was what I wanted to do. Now, Nellyville is the place you go to after making 8 to 9 million in sales."

In fact, Country Grammar has sold more than 9 million copies since its 2000 release. The rapper, who brought new focus to St. Louis to highlight more than just the Cardinals, the Rams and the towering Arch along the Mississippi River, possesses a charm not often associated with the hard-core world of hip-hop.

Even if you're no fan of the sound that often wraps catchy phrasings around the subjects of sex, drugs and the streets, you're still likely to be swayed by this 24-year-old's deep, piercing eyes, chiseled abs, generous smile and that silky voice that moves in and out of bad-boy beats to passionate, funky melodies.

Just nine short years ago before multiplatinum success, Nelly was known simply as Cornell Haynes II, a scrawny kid (he's 5'10") from the 'hood who was bound to make his mark on the baseball diamond (he was a standout in major league tryout camps) or on the street corner.

In 1993, he and a few other Brothers formed a music group, hoping to make it big. They didn't. But it was a start of what would soon become the St. Lunatics, a play on the St. Louis-based tappers' collective crazyparty onstage persona that, at times, can only be described as light-humored lunacy.

At first, the high school buddies used local production companies to drum up support. Singles like "Gimme What Ya Got" and "Who's the Boss?" were spawned. The former became a regional hit, thanks to play at local clubs and on local rap stations. "We tried to get with a lot of local labels, at first," Nelly says. "We sent demos to national labels and, in fact, to anybody who would listen."

By 1999, there was a multirecord deal with Universal Records for Nelly and the St. Lunatics, which included KyJuan, Ali, Murphy Lee, Jason and City Spud. Nelly featured recognizable, African-American St. Louis neighborhoods in his videos, and he often used local dance talent in the background. He introduced to the world words and elocutions that color his tunes with a distinctive feel for the dialect of the Midwestern city.

And, when Nelly--who was reared in St. Louis though born in Austin, Texas, when his father was based there in the military--decided to purchase a home, he decided on a St. Louis suburb. (Nelly's parents divorced when he was 7, and in the following years he lived alternately with his father, mother, grandmother, and other family members and friends.)

Known for an onstage presence that includes ghetto chic `do rags, backward-turned sports caps, oversized sports jerseys, sagging pants and diamond-studded chains, rings and bracelets, it seemed an unlikely choice that this often boisterous young entertainer would choose the serenity of one of the area's most exclusive (and quiet) lakefront communities to take up residence.

"I love the water. I'm a water guy," Nelly explains during an interview at his home that sits on a lake where he docks the detailed pontoon boat he recently purchased. He also loves the two built-in aquariums that line his foyer, another tank filled with African tropical fish situated in his living room, and the massive wall aquarium in his bedroom, where he keeps a lone, tiger barb that just happens to match the room's brown-and-beige decor.

This is the place where Nelly relaxes, tends to his cars (at last count, he had six, including a white Escalade EXT) and chills with family and friends.

There's not much that Nelly doesn't like about his sprawling four-bedroom, five-bath home, which has a market value of about $1.3 million. It gives him a place to rest and a place for loved ones and friends to play. In fact, he shares his bachelor pad with 19-year-old group member Murphy Lee. "I think it's good for them," says Nelly's mother Rhonda Mack, who maintains the home front when her famous son travels. "That way, they always have each other. They can talk to each other."

But fortune and fame have also come at an unexpected price. "I moved here when Country Grammar first came out," Nelly says. "I didn't know nobody, and nobody knew me around here. I thought it was the perfect spot."

Now, Nelly sometimes gets uninvited guests. "At night, we've started getting cars pulling up and all of these flashing lights out front," the rap star says of fans trying to get his photograph. "Out back, boats pull up to our docking area, some with video cameras in hand. People will actually walk up the back. It's happened more than once."