Nelly and the St. Lunatics have been recognized by their hometown of St. Louis and awarded the key to the city.
The honor went down at Nelly’s annual Black & White Ball on Sunday (December 15), which brought out a ton of stars including his wife Ashanti, fellow STLiens J-Kwon and Metro Boomin, plus Ne-Yo, Jermaine Dupri, Bow Wow, producer Bryan-Michael Cox and more.
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The event benefited the Make-A-Wish Foundation and gave out multiple scholarships to Harris-Stowe State University. Nelly also honored Make-A-Wish’s Max Del Rosario, a young boy who’s battling Hodgkin’s disease.
Later in the night, St. Louis mayor Tishaura Jones took the stage and presented Nelly and his crew with the newly-designed key.
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“You’ve had an amazing year and an amazing career. I think we can all agree in this room that Nelly has put St. Louis on the map,” she said. “And because of that, he’s been awarded time and time and time again by so many national organizations – but we want to give him his flowers here. And so it is my honor to present you with a key to the city. We wanna thank you for all that you to do for the community.”
Earlier this fall, a lawsuit filed by the St. Lunatics accused Nelly of allegedly withholding royalties over contributions the group made to his blockbuster album Country Grammar.
However, three members of the group — Murphy Lee, Kyjuan and City Spud — claimed they did not consent to the lawsuit and soon after formally withdrew their names from the filing, according to Billboard.
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The lawsuit is now a dispute between Nelly and Ali alone, with the latter saying through his lawyer that he will “continue to pursue the unpaid royalties he is entitled to.”
Ali was not in attendance at the Black & White Ball, but the aforementioned other members were.
In the original complaint, St. Lunatics alleged that Nelly had “manipulated” the group into believing that they had been paid for their work on his Diamond-certified debut album, but that was not the case.
The suit read: “Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [Nelly], [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to.
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“Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”
Shortly afterwards, St. Lunatics — with the exception of Ali — joined Nelly on stage at the 2024 American Music Awards before the trio subsequently demanded they be removed from the lawsuit.
