If you wondered why “Air Force 1,” “ASAP Rocky,” or “Nelly” spent the whole day trending on Twitter yesterday, the answer is simple. The same thing happened that seems to always happen: Someone unearthed an old, out-of-context quote, put it on the timeline, and sparked a controversy that caused nearly everyone with a working internet connection to weigh in on the debate. However, in this case, one voice was conspicuously absent — the person all the controversy was about.
However, The Breakfast Club — bless them — was already on the case, securing an interview with Nelly, the man of the hour, to finally settle the debate about who made Nike’s Air Force 1s more popular: Him or ASAP Rocky. He doesn’t hesitate to take credit for himself, although he does have one caveat. “At the end of the day, we have to look at the definition of famous,” he explains.
“Don’t get it twisted, we weren’t the first to start rocking Air Force 1s, we wasn’t the first ones that discovered Air Force 1s. But when you say ‘made em famous’ you gotta understand that Air Force 1s were more of a New York east coast thing. We didn’t rock Air Force 1s in the south or the midwest, they wasn’t rocking them on the west coast. Until we did what we did, Air Force 1s went from 59.99 to a hundred dollars in a year. The same year after we made our song, shot our video, and had our tour. I don’t know what A$AP is on, or whatever he’s talking about, but if he’s in any doubt all he gotta do is ask Nike. They sponsored our whole tour that year. We had a whole Air Force 1 that flew from the back of the stadium to the front of the stage during every show.”
When the hosts push back, saying that Rocky probably just meant he made them cool again — after all, about 10 years had passed between Nelly’s “Air Force Ones” single and Rocky’s rise to stardom — Nelly can’t see it. “He brought it back for the kids?” he challenges incredulously. “I don’t know, the price never changed my dude! We took em from $59.00 to $100.00! They never came back down my dude!”
At the end of the day, though, Nelly says, “I’m not doubting what A$AP feels, shout out to A$AP, to all them young bruthas, I fuck with all of them young bruthas.” However, he is adamant that credit is given where he feels it’s due. “We said who made them famous,” he reminds the hosts. “How we not make em’ famous, my dude?”
Watch Nelly’s interview with The Breakfast Club above.