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News
Nelly's Gems Nabbed
(E! Online, 10/28/2003 6:00 PM)
By Lia Haberman
Nelly lost big in Las Vegas this week when more than $1 million in jewels was stolen from his hotel room while he was in town for
the 2003 Radio Music Awards, authorities confirmed Tuesday.
The rapper (real name: Cornell Haynes) claims the bling-bling went missing from his hotel room at the Aladdin hotel-casino
on Monday while he was attending the awards show.
Michelle Branch, another guest at the Aladdin, also reported her hotel room robbed of computer equipment.
Authorities, whose investigation is ongoing, said the break-ins were reported at 8:50 p.m. on Monday. No suspects have
been named.
Nelly had better luck at the Radio Music Awards, which honors the most played songs on radio. "Shake Your Tailfeather,"
featuring Nelly, P. Diddy and Murphy Lee, won the award for Best Driving Song.
Branch was a performer at the ceremony, which was broadcast live on NBC. Other performers included Beyonc, who opened the show with her single, "Baby Boy," as well as Jewel and Avril Lavigne .
Other winners included Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who received the Legend Award. On hand to present the honor was
Stevie Nicks , who called the musician "my greatest musical influence."
50 Cent took home the award for Artist of the Year/Hip Hop Radio, Justin Timberlake for Artist of the Year/Top 40 Radio
Award and Tim McGraw for Artist of the Year/Country Radio. Michael Jackson received the Humanitarian Award while Casey Kasem
received the Radio Icon Award. The two-hour broadcast--which also featured the world premiere of Michael Jackson's long-delayed
benefit song "What More Can I Give?"--was hosted by American Idol's Ryan Seacrest and Brooke Burns of NBC's Dog
Eat Dog.
First it was Bentleys, then it was bling, now it's basketball teams. Part-ownership
of an NBA team is the new hip-hop status symbol, and Nelly is the latest subscriber to the trend.
Earlier this year,
Jay-Z became the first rapper to hold interest in an NBA team when he took
part-ownership of the New Jersey Nets (see "Nets Accept Bid From Jay-Z Group; Brooklyn Move Closer"). Now Nelly has joined the ownership group of Bobcats Basketball Holdings, LLC, which owns and operates NBA
expansion team the Charlotte Bobcats.
"Of the many dreams that I have fulfilled in life, being an NBA owner is certainly
one of the biggest achievements," Nelly said in a statement released by the Bobcats. "To be able to make this move with [majority
owner Robert L. Johnson], and to be a part of the first-ever minority-owned professional sports franchise in history, is a
great opportunity."
Members of the ownership group also include former NBA player and executive M.L. Carr, NASCAR racing
teams owner Felix Sabates, and former CEO of Bank of America, Hugh McColl. The ownership group of Bobcats Basketball Holdings,
LLC also owns the Charlotte Sting of the WNBA and C-SET (Carolinas Sports Entertainment Television).
Financial terms
were not disclosed, according to the release.
"This is a great opportunity for both the Bobcats and Nelly," said Johnson.
"Nelly is a great entertainer and a smart businessman, and those two traits will serve us well as we prepare to tip off our
inaugural season this fall."
The Charlotte Bobcats kick off their debut season in November.
"Bob and I share
the same commitment to diversity, and we are both self-made, having worked up from the very bottom to reach where we are today,"
Nelly said. "I look forward to learning about the business of professional sports ownership from him, and I also look forward
to meeting the Bobcats fans and becoming an active member of the Charlotte community in the future."
This report is from MTV News. |
Either you love Nelly or you hate him. For some, Nelly provides entertaining club music that succeeds due to its simplicity.
For others, Nelly represents an emcee with little to no lyrical or conceptual talent, who tries hard to bridge the gap between
the hip-hop and pop worlds. With his third release Sweat/Suit, Nelly looks to finally prove that he belongs in this
hip-hop game by dropping an unprecedented two albums on one day.
With the Sweat album, Nelly looks to continue
his long line of hit songs by delivering one infectious club banger after another. However, the album falters due to its repetitive
nature, as Nelly is bogged down in churning out tedious and formulaic radio efforts. While no one expects Nelly to provide
amazing lyrics or great concepts, what fans do expect out of Nelly are fresh and inventive party songs. Unfortunately, Sweat
lacks any of these qualities.
"Tilt Ya Head Back" features a horrible pairing of Nelly and Christina Aguilera over
Curtis Mayfield's worn out "Superfly" sample. "Down In Da Water," which features Ali & Gube Thug, suffers from a predictable
southern beat, as does "Boy" featuring Lil Flip & Big Gipp. Nelly's repetition of the word "boy" on the aforementioned
track is just more proof of why hip-hop fans have had trouble respecting Nelly as an emcee over the years.
Unfortunately,
things do not get any better for Nelly on Sweat, as most of the album follows this similar pattern of horrendous production,
cliché song making and forced guest appearances. The Infamous Mobb Deep, Alchemist, and Missy make a shocking appearance on
"Playa," but ALC's throw away 80's influenced production is easily his worst to date.
While Sweat can hardly
be looked at as a successful effort, there are a few standout moments. The sampling of the NBA theme song on "Heart Of A Champion"
makes for an entertaining experience, no matter Nelly's lyrical blunders. "I wipe my ass with your advance, and to the toilet,
then flush it." "Na-Nana-Na" is the album's best commercial effort, as Jazze Pha's captivating production allows Nelly to
be at his fun filled best.
While Sweat is intended to get all the women going crazy in the clubs, Suit
is geared towards the grown and sexy. Suit is the better of the two discs, but it still suffers from repetitive song
making, weak production and contrived group efforts. The most notable of these is "Over and Over" featuring Tim McGraw. Nelly
goes for a sappy mix of country and hip-pop, but only ends up producing an embarrassing disaster in the end. The lead single
"My Place" featuring Jaheim is a dreadful effort that is bred out of the same mold as "Dilemma". In fact, most of the songs
on Suit find Nelly crooning in his signature low pitched voice that the ladies love and the fellas hate. This formula
continues on bland efforts such as "Paradise" and "N Dey Say."
Just as Sweat did, Suit also features
a couple of nice attempts as well. "Play It Off" continues the precise chemistry Nelly and The Neptune's always seem to posses.
"She Don't Know My Name" is a silky smooth collaboration with Snoop Dogg and Ron Isley that shows Nelly's mature side. "Die
For You", another solid attempt, is a little edgier due to SoulShock and Karlin's satisfying production.
While Nelly
is revered for making catchy commercial hits, his formula for doing so has not progressed over the years. Nelly has continually
followed the blueprint that has gotten him rich over the years and on Sweat/Suit this formula runs dry. Nelly needs
to offer some more variety and original concepts if he wants to be more than a flash in the pan pop icon. Overall, Sweat/Suit
has a few standout moments but in the end, it succumbs to its repetitive and simplistic nature.
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Gossip
Singers Claim Nelly Copied 'Vokal' Label
(AP, 04/29/2004 1:21 PM)
By Mike Schneider
Two members of a musical group called Vokal have accused rap star Nelly in a lawsuit of wrongly taking their name for his
multimillion dollar clothing line.
James Tyrone Wilson and Cameron Caines are suing Nelly for trademark infringement and unfair competition. The singers want
an injunction to stop Nelly from using the name and millions of dollars in damages.
"Right now, since we don't have an accounting of the profits, we can't completely quantify the damages," Michael Santucci,
an attorney for the singers in Fort Lauderdale, said Wednesday.
Vokal Clothing Co., which makes Nelly's line of clothes, made more than $20 million in 2002, Santucci said, so a damage
award could be a "seven or eight-figure number."
Lisa Buckley, an attorney for the clothing company and Nelly, whose legal name is Cornell Hayes Jr., didn't return two
phone calls to her New York office.
Wilson and Caines have written music, performed live, recorded songs and distributed clothing under the name Vokal since
1994, according to the lawsuit filed last February in U.S. District Court in Orlando.
In 1998, Vokal signed a recording and distribution contract with Universal Records, around the same time the label signed
Nelly. Wilson and Caines said they retained exclusive rights over the name Vokal when they signed with Universal Records,
and that Nelly knew about the group and its business activities, the lawsuit said.
Shortly after signing with Universal Records, Nelly began selling clothing bearing the name "Vokal," according to the lawsuit.
"Nelly's people should have known about this since they were on the same label together," Santucci said.
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Normally, Nelly can knock out an LP in a couple of weeks and be
on his merry way. But when working on his upcoming double opus — the two halves of which together create the title Sweatsuit
— he took some extra time. Thus, Nells had to push the release date back a month.
"That was to make sure everything was right," Nelly
explained earlier this week, minutes after a performance with Murphy Lee at the "TRL" Beach House. "It wasn't that long ago
that I decided to drop two albums. I went in [to the studio] to do one album and everything was coming out crazy, stuff was
steadily coming out and sounding good. I was thinking of more and more stuff, and we came up with the two-album thing.
"The
Sweat side is more up-tempo, I would say real energetic. The Suit side is more of a grown-up and sexy vibe.
It's more melodic, if you can think of certain songs like 'Dilemma' and 'Ride Wit Me.' Something like 'Hot in Herre' would
be on the Sweat side."
Despite Nelly referring to his double album as having two "sides," it's really two different
albums coming out on the same day: September 14 (see "Tail Feathers Sore? Time To 'Flap Your Wings,' Nelly Says"). "You buy them separately," he noted. "You may just like one side, [but] the goal is that you'll like
the whole Sweatsuit. But you know, whatever you like from Nelly is cool. Fortunately, enough people have been supporting
me on both sides of my music, from the slower ones to the up-tempo, fast club-bangers. I'm trying to give people some of everything."
Nelly
has two singles and two videos coming, one for each new album. The Neptunes-produced "Flap Your Wings" leads off Sweat,
while "My Place," which features Jaheim, is Suit's initial cut.
"It was crazy," Nelly beamed about working with
the Neptunes again. "Like I always said, I was fortunate enough to know the Neptunes before I had a record deal. [Working
with them] is something that I've always been wanting to do, before I had a contract. Pharrell is my dirty. [And on 'My Place'],
Jaheim, the brother can sing. I just needed that vibe. He was perfect to do it. The videos [are] gonna kinda connect: You'll
see 'To be continued' and pick up where you left off."
After Sweatsuit, Nelly hopes to put out a St. Lunatics
group LP at the top of 2005. "We're waiting on a surprise — if it comes through, it'll be big," he said.
He's
also got a movie he wants to shoot, and in the meantime, fellow Lunatic Kyjuan is going to continue to shoot music videos
(his latest, Murphy Lee's "Hold Up," is on the airwaves now), and Ali will soon record a separate group album with the Goodie
Mob's Big Gipp.
This report is from MTV News. |
Nelly And Ashanti Romance Blossoms
(LAUNCH, 02/18/2004 5:00 PM)
By LAUNCH Radio Networks
Rumor has it that Nelly and Ashanti are having a secret romance, Blackvoices.com reports. The two were recently spotted
cuddling up at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where they frequently stay together in the presidential suite. Friends of the artists
have spilled the beans that they've been enjoying a string of low-key liaisons for almost four months.
Just last week (February 11), Nelly and Ashanti were seen dining together at Beverly Hills restaurant, Mr. Chow's.
For more news at LAUNCH, click here.
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