Nelly is clearing the air about one of the biggest hits of the 2000s.
The rapper denied ever being offered Flo Rida and T-Pain’s 2007 smash “Low” before it blew up. The track, which dominated the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks straight, famously name-drops Nelly’s own women’s brand, Apple Bottom Jeans.
For a throwback twist, Nelly just dropped a playful remix of the hit to promote his Apple Bubly Jeans collab, swapping the iconic hook with: “Shawty had them Apple Bubly Jeans.”
“Shout out to Flo and T-Pain, two great people, great artists. They killed it, man,” Nelly told People in a new interview. “Certain things happen organically, and that song [was] organic because we were having the type of success that we were having with Apple Bottoms at the time.”
Because “Low” famously name-checked Apple Bottom Jeans — and given Nelly’s stylistic similarities to Flo Rida — fans long wondered why the St. Louis star wasn’t on the record. That curiosity grew after T-Pain claimed in a 2022 episode of Joe Budden’s Pull Up that both Nelly and Paul Wall turned down the track before Flo landed it.
“I did the hook to ‘Low’ and ‘Shawty’ in the same night,” T-Pain told Budden, explaining that the demo was shopped around. “Paul Wall had ‘Low’ first, but he did it and it was a dope version of it, but Atlanta [Records] didn’t like it, and then they gave it to Nelly because he had the Apple Bottoms franchise. Nelly said it was corny.”
But Nelly is shutting down that story completely. Three years after T-Pain’s claim, he told People: “T-Pain lying, man. I ain’t never heard that song. But everything happens for a reason. You know what I mean? We don’t know what the song would’ve been if I did it.”
These days, Nelly is focused on his latest venture, Apple Bubly Jeans — a playful spin-off of his iconic Apple Bottoms line, which he revived in 2024 after a 15-year break. The relaunch was spotlighted on his Peacock reality series with Ashanti, We Belong Together.
