Nelly 'nearly quit rap'
Nelly nearly quit rapping after the death of his sister, it has emerged.
The ‘Hot In Herre’ rapper was close to giving up his career in 2005 when he suffered the loss of his sibling then his grandfather to cancer ahead of making his fourth album ‘Brass Knuckles’.
Nelly told MTV: "I lost my sister in 05 and almost didn't make it back. That's a lot that people didn't know. Even when I was going into ‘Brass Knuckles’ it was just, aiight.
"I lost my sister and six months later I lost my grandfather. Both of them the same way different diagnosis but both of them was due to cancer. And we had done so much to try to find a donor for my sister.
"I don't know if you ever had someone ailing from cancer in your family, but it's some of the most disheartening things to watch people go through so much pain and not be able to do anything about it."
Nelly had enjoyed phenomenal success in the early part of last decade, with his albums ‘Country Grammar’ and ‘Nellyville’ selling more than 13 million copies between them, but he said his phenomenal success and financial worth meant nothing in the face of the loss of his loved ones.
He added: "To have so much. So much money, so much things that you can basically buy your way out of it, but this thing here you can't get a grasp on it for nothing in the world.
"And I never lost anything in my life that close to me, never, ever, ever. And this is the person that took care of me."
Nelly’s fifth album, ‘Nelly 5.0’, will be released on November 15.
