Nelly exploded into superstardom with his 2000 Country Grammar album, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and remained there for five consecutive weeks. Subsequently, the album became the ninth Hip Hop album to earn a diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
But none of it would’ve been possible without the St. Lunatics— at least according to one of its members. On Monday (October 11), St. Lunatics rapper Ali shared an old interview of Nelly crediting Ali for helping him take a different direction with his music, a direction that led to unimaginable success.
He also accused Nelly of sending another “subliminal diss” on Sunday (October 10) that read, “It’s called a career and in it you have ups and downs…some never have ups themselves so technically they just never had a career. they just was apart of someone else. FACT!!”
But Ali begged to differ and took credit as the mastermind behind Nelly’s career. He then noted Nelly’s country-inspired album, Heartland, has been met with dismal sales. The project arrived in September and landed at No. 7 on the Billboard Top County Albums chart with roughly 13,000 total album-equivalent units sold in its opening week, as reported by MRC Data.
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As Ali explained, “Last night Nelly sent one of his subliminal disses towards me and my career. The Truth is ..Nelly = [talk] … Ali =[write] I wrote it & he said it and we sold 10,000,000 [diamond]… Go to his page ….. do you notice that he hasn’t said ANYTHING about that country album !!??
“Well I’ll tell you why …13,000 !!!! Wow , that’s how many copies of that album he sold !! ‘MY’ career was writing you a career. Smh… to be continued (it’s all the most grand illusion ever pulled , and it’s all unraveling RIGHT NOW… and he’s mentally suffering trying to hide the secrets)…. now let me get ready to drop wisdom off at school !!”
Ali has made numerous allegations against Nelly in the past. In February, Ali claimed Nelly “hustled” the entire group to which he replied, “When they said the Lunatics was doing all the legwork and talent shows and all of that, that was us. He didn’t do that.
“When we was going around town making a name for ourselves, doing the car wash, performing at the talent shows at [colleges]—that was us, that wasn’t Ali. Ali did not perform with us. Either he thought he was too good or he didn’t perform with us. … Just factuals. Actual factuals.”
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Once again, Ali accused Nelly of lying, writing in a since-deleted Instagram post, “In the interview he’s saying how he had plans on bringing the whole group back together (that’s a LIE, I begged him back in February to please bring the group back, he said ‘that isn’t what I want to do’).”
St. Lunatics haven’t released an official album since 2001’s Free City. Meanwhile, Nelly was just honored with the I Am Hip Hop Award at the 2021 BET Hip Hop Awards earlier this month.
