Don’t judge a book by its cover.
We’re supposed to use that saying to avoid making stereotypes. But do we?
Drop your eyes down three paragraphs and to the left a smidge. By that picture, who would you expect my favorite Springfest headliner to be?
It’s not Jack’s Mannequin. And the first time I heard Passion Pit was five minutes ago, after YouTubing them for this column.
Nelly is my homeboy. I might just be the most excited ticket holder on campus because we go way back.
Granted, Nelly was big in everyone’s pre-teen years, but he and I hail from not only the same area – St. Louis – but the same suburb, University City, or “U-Town” as he called it in “Steal The Show.”
When I heard rumors he could be coming for Springfest, I tried not to get my hopes up, because that would “shake my tail feather” if it did turn out to be just a rumor.
Which, unless you know me and my quirks, is probably surprising based on this column’s headshot.
“Country Grammar” was my first explicit CD. I played it on repeat, making my parents long for the days of the “Let’s Learn Spanish” cassette tape I was once fond of. I sing along at bars and regularly run to his chart-busting hits.
Ever since the Council of University Programming (CUP) announced the lineup, weekend pregaming and weekday commutes to co-op have revamped my playlists with a blast from the past. Friends have been posting YouTube videos on my Facebook timeline and tweeting any and all Nelly references at me.
I think they are more pumped for my public display of Nelly-love than the show itself.
In all honestly, I don’t really understand the “haters” of this year’s lineup. Who didn’t love Nelly and know all the words to his hits 12 years ago? Was he really not one of your first explicit CDs? And you don’t sing along at bars when they flash back to 2000? I don’t believe you.
I think he’s someone everyone can relate to, for the most part – unless you were living under a rock or overprotective parents when he was popular.
But our hometown connection probably has me a bit more excited than the average Husky.
Nelly went to my “rival” elementary school and had my parents not removed my brother and I from public education, we would have walked the same halls in high school.
At summer camp and on family vacations back then, being from St. Louis was much cooler than it is today. Everyone wanted to know if I knew Nelly.
I didn’t, but I knew all the words to “Ride Wit Me,” “St. Louie” and “Country Grammar.”
He wore a Band-Aid on his cheek and Cardinal shirts on stage. I and every other 11-year-old from U. City thought being from the same town made us little hoodsters, but it didn’t. We were, and for the most part still are, the whitest kids you’ll ever see. I wish I remembered how many of my friends went trick-or-treating as Nelly the following year.
Listen to “Country Grammar” again and count the references to St. Louis, the Lou and U-Town. When he graces the speakers at bars – and at Matthews on Saturday – it’s not just nostalgia for the days where the hardest choice we made was picking which color Air Force Ones or Nike Shox to buy, but a connection to home.
As new friends have picked up on this hidden passion of mine, it has become obvious that it’s ingrained in my upbringing, just like my love for baseball. We wear our St. Louis pride on our sleeves, mine is just usually ingrained in baseball, not my non-existent taste in music.
Apparently, this is the moment I didn’t know I was waiting for.
-Sarah Moomaw can be reached at [email protected].
