Nelly: Grammar Skool.

Nellyville is in stores now.

It didn’t take long for Country Grammar to establish Nelly as one of the hottest new stars of hip-hop. The disc title track headed straight for top end of the R&B chats, and critical acclaim soon followed with four Grammy nominations, a couple of source awards and kudos from the likes of MTV and Soul Train.

But things could have been very different. It was only a couple of years back the Nelly was on the verge of a career in professional baseball, his love of the game showing through in the clip for Batter Up with the St Lunatics. It was with this act he scored a regional hit back in 1996 with the track Gimmie What You Got, but after failed attempts to land a record contact with his home town St. Louis crew Nelly headed out on his own, and the rest belongs to history.

His second album, Nellyville, finds gets an airing this weekend, and the 24 year old star took some time to let us in on the making of the record.

Can you explain the title Nellyville to me?

"Nellyville is that perfect place right about now for me, after everything that's been going on with me, after the album and the success."

I'm sure you've hit the spot you've dreamed of for so many years. Is it everything you thought it would be?

"Nah, I think it's a little different (laughs). It's never what you think it will be, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It is a lot better than where I've ever been, so I'm not here to complain about it. I could definitely be doing much, much worse (laughs)."

What do you mean by it's not all it's cracked up to be?

"It's like this big fantasy thing until you get in it, until you learn what's going on and learn that it is business and a lot of it isn't taken care of the way you thought it would be taken care of."

Moving onto the topic of women, I want to know what kind of 'Pimp Juice' a woman has to have to attract you?

"(Laughs) I think the honesty 'pimp juice,' the honesty factor is real crucial, especially with the way things have turned out for me right now, meeting girls and stuff like that. You never know who's really there and what they want you for."

 A male friend of mine begged me to ask you if you've ever been intimate with a famous female?

"No comment! (Laughs for ages) No comment, no comment!"

Do you think working with 'NSYNC on the Girlfriend remix and having Justin Timberlake appear on your album is good for hip hop music?

"I think anytime you take a form of music and stretch it out to where it reaches other people, where other people can adapt to it and want to learn more about it, that's the thing that doing songs like that does. It breaks barriers and it expands the music. Hip hop is possibly the number one music today; when people need hits they turn to hip hop, when you get a rapper on your track or a rap producer making your track, it's hot. I definitely think it's good anytime you can take it and expand it. It's growth; everything must grow. Other kids around the world can benefit from this culture."

Have you ever thought to discuss more serious issues with your own music?

"Obviously. I think as you grow, that's what happens. I mean I'm only on my second album. As you grow you get more serious. How many albums you put out before that to make you get to this point to where you decide you own hip hop? What was the growth in your music as well? So as you grow you do get serious, but as of right now I'm having fun, I'm having a ball.”

“I'm not doing gangsta rap 'cause I lived all that. I ain't gotta rap about it, I lived it. You ain't gotta discredit me - you can go to exactly where I'm from and ask the people around there and they'll tell you. To each his own though; you gotta have one to have the other. I'm not knockin' any form of hip hop; I encourage any form you want to do. It's not me against anyone, it's me fighting for anybody that just want to do whatever they want to do. I'm not hurtin' anybody, I'm not harming a soul."

Changing the subject, what's something about you people wouldn't generally know?

"I put sugar on my spaghetti (laughs)."

What about with the ladies? Are you like you are in the videos, or are you a softie deep down?

"I'm chilled (laughs). A video is a video, it's entertaining. I'm more chilled, inside, laid back. But I do get out, and when I party I like to have fun. When it's time to party it's time to party, but the majority of the time we're just chillin' 'cause we don't get a lot of breaks."

So tell me about St. Louis

"In any city what makes the city is the people, and everybody in St. Louis is real laid-back, everybody knows everybody. If you're good at anything in the city, everybody pretty much knows about it. There's only so many places to party, but it's getting better."