In the summer of 2000, Cornell "Nelly" Haynes Jr. did the unbelievable. Nelly, an unknown hip-hop rap artist from St. Louis, Missouri, sold over a quarter of a million copies of his debut album, ‘Country Grammar’ during its first week of release.

Since then the rap artist has come along way, selling millions of hip-hop albums and collecting many Gammy Awards along the way.

He has been in the business arena with his hip-hop Vocal Clothing line and his beverage line Pimp Juice. He has branched off and has acted in movies; The Longest Yard. He has come along way from that unknown hip-hop rap artist from St. Louis

Nelly runs the nonprofit organization 4 Sho 4 Kids. He has helped in campaigns for bone marrow registration in honor of his sister, Jackie Donahue, who died in March after a long battle with leukemia. Because of that work Nelly, will be the recipient of Russell Simmons & the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network "Action Award" for his outstanding contributions to the 4Sho4Kids Foundation and leukemia awareness. The ceremony will take place in New York on November 16^th.

Now the latest is that the St. Louis rapper has signed a deal to develop a reality television series with A. Smith & Co. Productions.. The show will be a journal of "the day-to-day life" of the hip-hop rap artist. The show is on target to be on air sometime next year.

Nelly has had his share of up’s and down’s; from the Pimp Juice controversy to the Spelman Collage students and his videos – but in the BIG picture it is good to see that Nelly is doing something worthwhile and is now being noticed for the good things that a hip-hop rap artist can do instead of the headlines of shootings and stabbings and all the other ‘bad press’ that is tearing away at the core of hip-hop culture. Media attention needs to show the good side of what is going on in hip-hop instead of dwelling on and giving the presumption that hip-hop is all violent.

The Live 8 concerts and hurricane Katrina benefits and relief shows have showed that hip-hop culture cares deeply about all life and the few in the culture that see or give the impression that life is ‘cheap’ are few and really don’t represent true hip-hop.

Visit Nelly’s web site - http://www.nelly.net