When Nelly entered the rap game spitting “Down, down baby … Shimmy, Shimmy cocoa pop” rhymes, staunch Hip Hop heads experienced convulsions thinking the future St. Louis legend was turning the culture into Mother Goose.
Fast forward 15 years: Nelly’s Country Grammar debut album is diamond certified and Drake is sitting comfortably on top of the rap game (and most of R&B as well) facing the same type of critiques.
For no good reason (which is generally a good reason when it comes to social media), Twitter users feverishly engaged in a Drake Vs. Nelly debate. The overarching argument got muddled between “bigger artist” and “better rapper” but there were still some very entertaining viewpoints shared nonetheless.
Take a look at some of the best ones below and give us your take in the comment section.
nelly is not like A.I. of music.
i am not sure what to do with the drake/curry reference.
I have never been a big fan of Nelly- still not. I liked one song – hot in here b/c all the chicks danced.
other than that – no thanks.
Em, Pimp Juice and us
…exactamundo…
This is a joke. nelly is not even close to the same league as Drake. anyone saying Drake wouldn’t have survived in Nelly’s era is dreaming. He would murder that has-been. they said Drake wouldnt make it when he started in this era too. he was the butt of jokes. the biggest difference is Drake is actually lyrical when he wants to be whereas Nelly is more of a one-dimensional pop artist. Drake can be one-dimensional pop artist when he wants to be, sure, but it’s just one of the many forms of music he has mastered. he also has tracks like 0 to 100 and Two Birds One Stone – that are actually lyrical. As far as changing the era, I don’t remember many melodic or non-gangsta rappers pre-2010. Now everyone sounds like a Drake wanna-be. The twitter comments are mostly a joke. Drake does what Nelly does, plus messes with what Yo Gotti, Jay-Z and NaS does. that’s the difference.
U really drinking the Kool-Aid. Drake does what Jay-Z and Nas does? Never, not in a million years.
Drake is a two trick pony, sings and raps. Truth is, those two tricks are great to have in your arsenal.
But the one thing he doesn’t do that Jay and Nas do extremely well, is write his own lyrics. Drake has always needed help. Before it was QM, it was Detail, before Detail it was OVO Hush aka Young Tony, penning epic bars for Drake. Dude is all over Drake’s first 3 album credits, go read. So Drake has a history of leaning on other ppl’s creative juices and now he only signs singer/songwriters who produce aswell. U think that was by accident? Nah. He just be picking out their best shit for himself. Never compare Drake to real rappers ever again fam. U can’t call somebody lyrical of they didn’t pen that shit themselves.
@ ilexx.. the idea that Drake might have some credited collaborators on a few tracks is true. Sure. he also has plenty of credit scores himself on other artist’s albums. But guess what so does every hiphop artist in history..NaS had rumours ghostwriters/collaborators for Untitled. stic.man has said he wrote bars for NaS. NaS even admitted having his bars edited by Large Profressor for Illmatic. Jay-Z has hundreds of questionable credits, rumoured collaborators and plenty of Biggie lines in his most popular bars. His hook for 99 Problems is from an uncredited Ice-T. Your gonna see thousands of credits on any hiphop artist’s album credits because samples means credits are given to the original songwriters. And do I really need to run down the list of legendary artists who have flat out used writers for entire songs? Chuck D, Ice Cube, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Phife Dawg, Biz Markie etc. I could go on…If Drake is employing full time ghostwriters, I’m gonna need more evidence than 3 or 4 parts of bars and a hook here and there for 3 songs especially from a guy who has a catologue of 300-400 songs. Believe me, if there were tons of ghostwritten songs, We’d here about it with all the hate Drake gets. The evidence suggests he may have got help on maybe 6 bars and 3 hooks – big deal. it’s standard in hiphop. My favourite rapper Ghostface had help La Cherchez La Ghost for 4 bars from Method Man…Is this enough for me to dismiss his skills? cmon man…get real
Drake would have been laughed right out of Hip Hop once those reference tracks popped up. It’s a different time now everybody pop pills and don’t care bout writing. Still Nelly true f**king classices. Both these dude pop artists really but Nelly is more acceptable to me. Nelly had chicks open poppin that asz. Drake make you wanna cry or just turn the radio off all tougher. But then again I’m not an emotional pill head…
Lol @ emotional pill head
Forget all this shyt!! We black ppl or here fighting and stomping each other out on MLK day. White ppl don’t even have to don’t it to us anymore. and y’all wanna talk about Nelly vs Drake….smfh anybody else see a problem here???
Somewhere an old white dude planting these debates online is rocking uncle sams suit and crying out “dance for me my urban puppets…Dance!!”
no I don’t You act like this is something new or something. Everybody know MLK day people in the club drinking. MLK Blvd is always dangerous.
Never could stand either one but I will give Drake the win
I am just in awe of the amount of Nelly love. Because when he was on top, he was the one who was “killing Hip Hop.”
Yep. And before that, it was Biggie / Puffy ruining hiphop, and then it was Dr Dre and West Coast hiphop ruining hiphop…see a pattern ? whoever is dominating hiphop is ruining hiphop… but when KRS-one went at Nelly he had good reason. HIs music was pure non-lyrical pop music. KRS-one wouldnt attack Drake like that because he knows Drake has bars at the end of the day. He can spit when he wants to. Drake is much more lyrical than Nelly
Well I think KRS’ gripe with Nelly was more so over the usage of the #1 tag but I agree, he definitely thought he had a paper tiger opponent. Cornell dodged all that and took him to the club with “Roc the Mic” though lol
What people fail to understand is EVERYTHING was different back in the early 2000s. The internet controls everything now. When Nelly was poppin’ back then, he would’ve shut down the internet if he dropped something randomly but he didn’t have the luxury of doing something like that – labels function differently . . . they view the internet as the end all, be all for sales and garnering attention for their artists. Would Drakes references tracks leaking have had the same impact on fans if it were the early 2000s? No. Because this was before social media, etc. You’re comparing apples to oranges.
Yeah some girl saying Drake had the highest grossing hip hop tour of all time and so hes hotter than Nelly. Well the more shows you add the more you gonna gross. Eminem shows have an average attendance around 70000-90000 and if he did the same amount of shows as Drake he would gross more. Same goes for most other artists as well.
Nelly wasn’t the hottest artist of the time back then. Drake is now. So I guess Drake got him. But, Drake ain’t never dropped an album as hot as Country Grammar. On the real.
Take off your nostalgia tinted glasses, Drake is running hiphop right now and is way bigger than Nelly
‘…the truth is us, only dudes moving units is Em, PIMP JUICE, and us…’ What do you mean…? Triangle defense anyone, unstoppable… Nelly in his prime was neck and neck with Rap God and Hov; FOH if you disagree…
My nigga…pimp juice was the shit. “You wanna put your feet on my rug don’t ya?” LMAO Tell I’m lying…
Nelly was never the best lyricist but managed to be a big fish in a large pond with other big fish. Drake is in an era where ppl don’t even like rappers, they just wanna sing and hum along. Nelly competed with eminem, jay-z, Nas, 50, Game, kanye, Lil Wayne, ludacris, all when they were dropping fire. Drake is competing against a bunch of one hit wonders and ppl ju-juing on beats. Drake is a better rapper no doubt, although he doesn’t show it because he sings most of the time, but how many rappers right now are going platinum? Nelly was probably in hip-hops greatest era with the most memorable MC’s and was selling with the best of them. Drake over here in the modern era NBA where everyone is soft and almost nobody will be going into the Hall of Fame.
Nelly had mad competition and still was able to sell a crazy amount of records. I can’t deny Drakes success but who is really up against these days?? I’ll wait..
Honestly, there’s no comparison here. One said they started from the bottom, now he’s here. And the other one said it’s getting hot in hurr.