St. Louis rapper Nelly has returned to the spotlight thanks to his newly-released album Nelly 5.0 and “Just A Dream,” a single that’s currently number one on the Billboard Top Pop Songs chart. The rapper recently spoke to the Wall Street Journal about his new album, crossover songs, and even Ashanti.
While Nelly was asked about singer Ashanti, who he’s been romantically linked with for quite some time, several times in the interview he remained relatively tight-lipped about his relationship with her.
“This is my thing: how can you have a breakup when two people never said anything about being together,” said Nelly when asked if his relationship with Ashanti has come to an end. “Why would it be the end of a friendship? We’ve always said that we were friends.”
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The St. Louis rapper went on to speak about how he’s inspired to make “music” in general more than focusing on any particular genre.
“A lot of people in hip-hop, especially the younger generation, they’ve listened to rap their whole lives; that’s all they know,” Nelly explained to the Wall Street Journal. “When I was coming up, I was listening to a lot of different kinds of music. My father played the Isley Brothers, Earth Wind & Fire, Commodores, Michael Jackson, Prince. So when you come from stuff like that, it’s about the music. I try to put in that influence, from things that I know.”
Nelly also went on to explain his new album as, “a little bit of this and a little bit of that, as all my records are. ‘Gone’ is meant to be uplifting; ‘Move That Body’ is a party record; ‘Just A Dream’ is about love.”
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Nelly 5.0 was released on Tuesday, November 16.
