ST. LOUIS _ "I'm going down, down, baby, your street in a Range Rover. Street sweeper, baby, cocked, ready to let it go."
That's how it went down in the year 2000, when a young rapper from St. Louis introduced us to his "Country Grammar."
In doing so, Nelly, also known as Cornell Haynes, took the music world by storm with his immediately infectious sing-songy hip-hop style. His album made its way up the charts, landing at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Hits such as "E.I.," "Ride Wit Me," "Batter Up" and the title track helped sell over 10 million albums as he showed the world that big hip-hop can actually come out of St. Louis. (A documentary titled "Background Check" showed there was St. Louis hip-hop long before Nelly, though he certainly took it to the next level.)
