Nelly Defends His Street Cred

Nelly felt the need to defend his street cred in a recent interview. The St. Louis rapper's popularity has been in decline compared to his early 2000s heyday, and some have suggested he may have been oversold as a crossover pop act. Nelly says he's as street as he ever was.

He also said people are jealous of his success.

"At the end of the day, I am urban, so you can't run from that fact," Nelly said in an interview. "At the end of the day, it's another successful brother, stepping and breaking ground for the next brother to come along and do it...You do what works for you -- I think you'd be an idiot to not do what works for you. They don't want me to be smart about it? They wanna see another dumb brother not succeeding because he tried to do something that wasn't smart? That's what they say about us: We don't think first. Well, this brother thinking first. I plan on being here."