5 Things to Expect from Nelly’s Country-Inspired Upcoming Album

Superstar Nelly is going country! His country-inspired album, Heartland is due out this Friday, August 27th. It features collaborations with country artists like Blanco Brown, Florida Georgia Line, Darius Rucker, Chris Bandi, and more. After chatting with the megastar, we are giving you the inside scoop about what to expect from the brand new project.

1. Nelly may not have listened to country music growing up, but he was still a country music fan.

“The way that I kinda got turned on to country music,” he shares, “my uncle was the one that turned me on to music, but what he made sure to do was he taught me to appreciate all music. All music is good.”

 

2. His hit record Country Grammar inadvertently inspired his connection to country music and country music fans.

“I was getting so much love from the country music community ever since Country Grammar came out, they had been rocking with me. I didn’t know it would lead me to this moment, but I definitely knew that it was something special.”

 

3. Heartland came to fruition due to the time Nelly got to create during the pandemic.

“What really allowed me to do this project was the pandemic. It allowed me time to sit down and think about how I was going to take these blessings from this whole different genre of music and salute them for showing me the love.” He declared later, “This album is my salute to the whole country world for showing Nelly so much love.”

 

4. The new record is country-inspired because Nelly will never quite identify himself as a country artist.

 “I’m just trying to tell my story and rock out, but the thing is my story connected with so many people that it allowed me to do this project today.”

 

5. The incredible collaborations were done intentionally!

“There’s no doubt about it that the majority of my features are these young African Americans [Breland, Kane Brown, Jimmie Allen] in this business of country music. That is definitely on purpose.”

 

Check back here on Friday, August 27th for our exclusive interview and full album review of Nelly’s Heartland.

Fans can join our Weekly Round-Up e-newsletter here, for the latest in country music and more news about future Nelly releases.

* Interview Conducted by: Stephanie Wagner // Written by: Erica Zisman for Country Swag