The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #192

#192: "Country Grammar" (2000) - Nelly

Of all the (male) rappers of the past decade, no one's* been as critically-lambasted as Nelly, and I still just don't get it. The main knock against Nelly has been his lack of lyrical substance. On paper, this denunciation makes sense...as does any knock against (almost) any pop (rock/rap/country) song lyrics. Why? Because this stuff ain't poetry. And that ain't a knock.

In poetry, verse and wordplay is not only central; it's all there is. The poet must focus on rhyme, rhythm, meter, structure, diction, and content; the lyricist must focus on rhyme, rhythm, meter, structure, diction, and content in realtion and subservient to the music (the rhythm, the melody, the harmony, the arrangement, the sound of the instruments, and the production). The words themselves aren't as important as are the sounds the words make.** For the most part, a song's lyrics are a means to an end, and the end is the overall impact of the record en toto. This fact should exonorate Nelly from any further criticism (as a rapper).

Few rappers have the smooth, bouncing, rhythmic cadence that Nelly expertly employs. He seems to take his beat-heavy flow--and much of his lyrical and onomatopoeiacal concepts--straight from child-hood street games, where the rhythm of the words is crucial--because to break stride means you lose (or someone trips on the rope)--and the meaning of the words is secondary. The content of these verses focus on chants or singsong nonsense, anything that'll produce a particular sound or beat, and Nelly's lyrics employ the same methodology. Think of some of his biggest hits: "#1" features the juvenile-like chant "I--am--number one" on the chorus, "E.I." swipes its chorus from Speedy Gonzalez, and "Where the Party" uses the ages-old cheerleader chant "uh-oh-oh-oh-oh."

Best of all, "Country Grammar" takes its chorus and entire melody from the old childhood jumprope singsong "Roller Coaster" (you know it: "Shimmy shimmy coco pop..."), and Nelly vamps all up, down, and around part of the repeated melody, much like a jazz musician will riff on C for half an hour. It doesn't really matter what he says--and, admittedly, he doesn't have much to say--because what he does say he says very well. Unlike almost every single one of the rappers and singers on this chart, Nelly has enough rhythmic vocal chops that one could remove the music from this record and what was left could still get played on the radio. Robert Burns he ain't, but then again, Robert Burns ain't got nuthin' on Nelly.

NOTES

*Okay, Kanye West's rapping skills have been dissed (and rightly so) more than Nelly's have been, but West's forte always has been his production skills, and his rapping is just, well, a means to an end.

** Think of it like this: how many instrumentals have been played on pop radio over the last fifty years? Heck, even the past thirty-five? Well, I don't have the exact answer, but the approximate answer is many! Now, have many spoken word lyrics (completely sans music) have been played on pop radio over the last seventy years? Answer: next to none (it's none as far as I've been able to find, but you never know). Why? 'Cause, other than news, weather, sports, political talk, and NPR, people listen to the radio to hear music.