Desperate much?

Nelly's got a new album coming out tomorrow and no one gives a shit. So you know what that means: Time to beef with someone, for the purposes of getting his name in the paper.

Normally, you wouldn't associate Nelly with that kind of foolishness, but since when has Nelly ever had to sweat being able to sell records?

His first album came from seemingly out of nowhere, i.e. my native St. Louis, to sell more albums than pretty much anyone other than McHammer and probably 2Pac. (Noticing a trend?) And the second album, even if it didn't manage to sell quite as well, still sort of picked up on its momentum.

Then there was that Sweatsuit album, which I think we all kinda figured would be the final nail in the coffin, as far as his career was concerned, if only for the fact that it was named after a motherfucking sweatsuit. But even it managed to do remarkably well, mostly on account of the country song he did on Suit.

I remember, back when I worked at a K-Mart, Suit was literally the only album I ever sold anyone, the entire time I worked there. I'm not even sure if we had a proper CD section, or if we just had a bunch of copies of Suit stacked up back by the electronics section.

It became obvious to me, though, a couple of years ago, when Nelly put out a single sampling that one K-Ci and Jo-Jo record, and everyone just kinda shrugged and went about their business: Nelly's career was finally about to go the way of Ja Rule's career.

But then the new Nelly album never came out. It got pushed back a few months, then it got pushed back a few more months. Then, the next thing you know, an entire year had gone by. I'm not even sure if they bothered to release any singles in the interim.

In fact, the only thing I've heard from Nelly as of late is that teh ghey album cover, of him with his rock hard abs (nullus), and those Sean John ads with him in his underwear. So maybe he's hoping a bunch of teh ghey guys and lonely fat chicks will run out and cop Brass Knuckles just for the artwork.

Also, he's got a video up on ThisIsFiddy (and hence also WSHH) going at Ice T for having the sheer balls to dis Soulja Boy. So maybe a minor controversy will erupt, people will be reminded that Nelly's got a new album coming out this week, and it won't sell as bad as it would have otherwise.

At the very least, maybe he'll be able to solidify his standing amongst the Soulja Boy community, many of whom were only like 8 years old or some shit when Country Grammar came out. (Think about it.)

Which brings me to my point: Nelly can't possibly believe half the shit he's saying about how Ice T is too old to be criticizing Soulja Boy's music, and about how old people are in danger of being perceived as a bunch of haters, can he?

First of all, despite the fact that he might look younger than I do at this point (must be the difference in lifestyle!), Nelly's not that young himself. The guy's in his mid 30s now, and I'm not about to sit here and do the math, but he might actually be closer in age to Ice T than he is to Soulja Boy.

At least Soulja Boy is actually young enough to make such a bullshit argument, both in the sense that he can actually claim to be a young person, and in the sense that his brain isn't fully formed yet, though it might be about as formed as it's gonna get.

Also, what's age got to do with it anyway? If you notice, it's Soulja Boy and now Nelly inserting age into this, not Ice T, or the GZA, or myself. I seriously doubt any of them (er, us) could give a rat's ass what age Soulja Boy is.

If the guy's old enough to make bullshit music, he's old enough to get dissed for it. If he doesn't like it, he ought to take his punk ass back to kindergarten, or wherever it is he came from.

You'd think that Nelly would understand this better than anyone, given that he was once involved in a beef, with KRS-One, that basically operated under the same principle.

If only his ab game was as strong seven years ago as it is today. He could have pretended he was 10 years younger than he was and used the same bullshit argument Soulja Boy is using today.