Having just featured on Janet Jackson’s comeback single
“Call On Me”, Nelly is back in the limelight again. To coincide with this
publicity, demonVision has released an unauthorised biography of the rappers
career so far which promises to reveal the truth behind Cornell Hayes Jr’s rise
to fame. With the help of some rare footage that details his brief time in
baseball as well as documenting his feud with KRS1, we are promised to know
Nelly like we’ve never known him before.
Just like so many films and TV
programmes, none of this documentary’s promises are kept. I wasn’t shown an
in-depth story of his life featuring interviews with friends and family or
footage of his early performances as well as the more documented ones. Instead,
it’s one of the most uninteresting and badly made biographies ever seen.
The so called “rare footage” of Nelly’s time as a baseball player is simply
photos of St. Louis’s stadiums with
other players on the field. And the “exclusive” shots of fellow rapper’s
Eminem, Dr Dre etc was filmed years ago and have probably been viewed millions
of times on YouTube.
For those who aren't big fans of Nelly, there are probably some aspects of his life you won't be aware of but his life story is just one
google search away. I wouldn’t have to sit through over an hour of bland shots
and interviews with fans and people who probably have no connection with
him
The same shots of Nelly, Kelly
Rowland et all were rehashed numerous times during the DVD, sometimes in the
completely wrong place. A shot of him after he’s made it when the narrator is
telling us about the early struggle doesn’t make sense and only added to the
confusion. Not to mention the totally irrelevant shot of some random girls
dancing in a club when we should have had something better. As if the footage
wasn’t bad enough, all of the quotes from collaborating artists, reviewers
(including one from ukmusic.com) and the man himself were read out by the
narrator – who would have actually been quite good had he had a better
script.
Understandably there is only so much
a filmmaker can do with an unauthorised biography, but it’s naive to think that
in this day and age you can release such a poorly made programme full of easily
accessible information and expect people to spend money on it.
Rating: 1/5
Offical website: www.nelly.net
Words: Limara Salt
