Nelly did his thing locally in STL before he got his major deal. Like I'ver said before...I don't love his music, but don't dislike it either. Bottomline is that Nelly came in the game doing something totally different and is hated now cause mainstream America liked it.
Your shit is always "tighter" when you are nobody. When mainstream America likes you, you become "wack" to so many people. Look at 50, he hasn't changed his game at all...just has videos and album sales now, yet cats are so quick to hate on him.
I think I can sum it up with some shit I heard on my boy O'Reiley's show.... "The higher you get on the flag pole, the more people can see your ass, and they can't deal with that!"