Nelly was never soft. When have you ever heard anyone testing him. He just understood how to make music with catchy flows. Pre Flo-Rida, post Mase. Dude found his lane, but I've never heard anything that insinuated Nelly was soft. Matter of fact I heard the opposite. That he held his own, and was the only one who could have got all those people to appear on his first video, cause most of them were street dudes with beef and shyt.