Nellyville was his artistic peak.It kind of depends.
The thing is: Even though Black people f*cked with Nelly, he was the 2nd most marketable rapper after Eminem in that 2000-2002 era. He was a pretty boy () who had a relatively safe image and made catchy tunes that a lot of women enjoyed and his music got heavy spins on pop/country stations and on MTV/TLR.
The millions of albums Nelly sold were mainly from the MTV/TLR White audience who saw him as a "safe" rapper to listen to and pop fans definitely drove tons of album sales off the strength of a few catchy singles.
It happened with many other artists who were popular with the early 2000's MTV/TLR audience. They would buy albums solely off of lead singles and radio hits. Even though Black folks played his music at functions/parties, that was the audience that Nelly appealed to for many of his album sales. And he extended that to the Country audience with Over and Over.
Exactly.
Even Ja Rule had some stans back then who vouched for him as a rapper and disliked 50 Cent.
I straight up never heard of Nelly actually having people vouch for him as a rapper or artist and I've been posting on rap forums for a looong time.
Country Grammar was a good project but was not touted up as a classic hip hop album.
Nelly had good singles for his first 2 albums that appealed to both the streets and the suburbs and that's how he got so popular. After Nellyville, he became a caricature of himself and hip hop moved past him. Even Luda stayed relevant in hip hop for more than 2 album cycles.
sweatsuit was so bad and it derailed his career
