![]() Louis' surprise star: The rapper's success seemed to "support the industry's system of regional exploitation," his "countryfied slang" was a "disposable gimmick," and he didn't have more to say than "flossing around town, smoking and sexin' women." (Drumming would concede two things: "his colorful descriptions of otherwise mundane life in ol' St. In a story for The Washington Post in 2000, the writer Neil Drumming summed up the discourse surrounding St. And between albums one and two, he'd go from standing in front of the Arch to naming his next destination after himself: "Nellyville is the place you go to after making 8 to 9 million in sales," he said astutely in 2002.īeyond the buyers and the sellers themselves, most bystanders were putting very little value in what Nelly was actually accomplishing at the time. Overnight, he seemed to transition from Natural Bridge and Kingshighway to the Super Bowl. The feedback on Nelly, according to the Universal A&R who signed him, Kevin Law, was "extraordinarily negative," but the early returns didn't lie: three singles, three hits. There was no path to a deal for them as a group, so, like a double-A roster trying to make something out of its prospects, they sent Nelly solo to the majors. Lunatics were founded in '94 and, after hitting the air on local radio in '96 with the jiggy single "Gimme What U Got," moved around 10,000 records out of a trunk, according to Nelly. But as most of the gangsta rap apostles tweaked patented formulas, a group of childhood friends strove for something bigger. NCO parroted MC Eiht, until he became Raw Society the scene's most talented artist, he brought a clarity and confidence his peers lacked. ![]() Monk rapped about chronic and ripped "Boyz-n-the-Hood" and Lil Whit channeled the funky worm. A smattering of local artists picked up the mantle chasing rap in all directions, but by the mid-'90s the influence of G-Funk had won out, thanks, in part, to Smoov, who worked with the producers for AMG and DJ Quik. Louis rapper was actually being heard at hip-hop's power centers: His self-titled album appeared in The Source's review section alongside Houston's Scarface, Oakland's Del the Funky Homosapien and Inglewood's AMG. The nascent scene existed primarily in call-and-response freestyles on air until 1987, when two teenagers, Dangerous D and DJ Charlie Chan, went to the Vintage Vinyl to cut the first local record, "The Power of Soul." But it wasn't until Sylk Smoov, in 1991, that a St. Louis DJ Jim Gates played "Rapper's Delight" on radio before any other station in America, and hip-hop hit the Clinton-Peabody housing projects hard. That distinction seemed to fuel its local rap scene, which stood for the city from its earliest days. It's not the people, but the politics," Nelly told Ebony. Louis used it as slang a fitting qualifier for the STL would be "rigid." "St. As a rap moniker, "dirty" would stick for the South, even though people in St. The city overflows into the valleys of Illinois and lies there, writhing under its grimy cloud." Rappers have not been immune to this gloom. Louis sprawls where mighty rivers meet - as broad as Philadelphia, but three stories high instead of two, with wider streets and dirtier atmosphere, over the dull-brown of wide, calm rivers. Du Bois' description of the place invokes dingy, isolated imagery: "St. Louisans cold, smug, complacent, intolerant, stupid and provincial," the playwright Tennessee Williams once said. Louis, where he was raised, were country towns with country people, and Josephine Baker called it a city of misery and terror. Louis was not a sacred space for Black creatives. ![]()
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