Cornell Iral Hayes, Jr., the author of culturally necessary sounds such as “Tip Drill,” “Pimp Juice,” “Stepped on My J’z” and the country/rap mash up that nobody fucking asked for “Over and Over,” a duet with Tim McGraw, has gone viral in a clip where he is interviewed by Ebro on the “Ebro in the Morning,” show on Hot 97.
Nelly wanted to set the record straight and ended up sounding like a broken record instead. In the clip, Nelly discusses his very controversial decision to perform at this year’s inauguration festivities, along with fellow traitor rapper, Snoop Dogg.
The culture has not been kind to these two since they’ve done so. This is especially problematic for Nelly, because he has a brand-new reality show with the woman he strung along for over a decade, and finally married his wife, Ashanti. This move may have hurt potential viewership, with many people citing it as a reason they will not be watching. However, from the looks of some of the viral clips of the show, Nelly’s ideologies are trash enough controversial enough that people might still tune in to watch the potential dumpster fire wild ride. As part of his justification for the performance, as if a check isn’t the greatest motivator, Nelly highlights all the community work he has done and what type of platform and connections the performance will bring about. Nelly also cited being a military brat and having “respect of office,” as his reasons.
With that said, the question remains: What is the point of doing community work just to work for a man who undoes the community? Why help celebrate a man who has gutted the education system and made significant cuts to HBCUs in that same community Nelly claims to care about?
If it wasn’t about the money and was about the community and platform, then he would’ve donated all proceeds to those same charitable organizations that Trump is actively destroying. Nelly responded on The Shade Room’s (who ALLEGEDLY also takes Trump money) Instagram account about that interview. In his response, he states that many of the commenters don’t have the “stats to back up” what he and Snoop have done for the community. Having more resources than someone does not equate to having given a larger share of those resources, and to act as if you being a millionaire means that you have given more of your resources is dismissive to the people doing the real groundwork in those communities, who no longer have to live in them.
He also emphasized that he and Snoop are married to Black women (as if Snoop isn’t known for being in these streets and is if Nelly isn’t also going viral for stating that he would have a hands-off approach with their newborn until he could walk, after his wife asked for his help), and that people were angry because “some of ya’ll have a problem with [us] because ‘the prosecutor who has probably locked up more Black men that we’ve helped woman of color with the white husband and white kids Did not win the election…”
That is the exact Country Grammar he used in his response, by the way, but hey, it doesn’t have to make sense to the reader for it to make sense to him. What’s even wilder is that Kamala had nothing to do with his decision to perform; his desire to get that money was his greatest motivator.
Nelly claimed that he performed because he respects the office of the presidency, but how do you have “respect for office,” that is disrespectful to the same community you claim to do so much for? Are you one of his African Americans now? Nelly can equivocate all he wants, but he can’t be that dumb to believe that others are that dumb too, well, he did rap, “manicured toes,” on a track, so maybe he might be. Especially since part of his deflection was to regurgitate DEBUNKED rhetoric about Kamala Harris, in an attempt to absolve himself of what feels like an act of betrayal to many Black people. If he felt that strongly about Kamala, then he probably would’ve declined the invitation, had she won, and Kamala’s camp found him suitable enough (yeah right).
It is doubtful that if she had won, he would’ve shown the same type of reverence and defense of his decision had he faced any scrutiny for doing so. Additionally, while he defended himself against being called a Trump supporter and stated that he does not agree with everything Trump does, he never explicitly stated anything negative about Trump or recalled any of Trump’s policies with which he disagreed. In fact, he very specifically used the word “respect,” when it came to justifying his performance for Der Führer 2.0. He even went so far as to say, “I don’t agree with everything my wife does,” as a comparison to his views on Trump.
Comparing your wife to someone who decimates communities by the tens of thousands is crazy work, but hey, he clearly likes the taste of both Ashanti’s and Trump’s genitalia, so play ball or batter up, or whatever.
