#SaveNelly With 300 Million Streams: Rapper Nelly Gets Spotify, Apple Music, And Itunes Help From Fans — Plus ‘All Lives Matter’ Backlash

The last time the rapper known as Nelly was in the news in a big way was when Nelly’s name was mentioned as part of a love triangle. As reported by the Inquisitr, Nelly and Nicole Holder had a brief relationship — according to police reports of Nicole’s testimony — which set Greg Hardy off and acted as the impetus for Greg to allegedly give Nicole bruises, claimed Holder.

These days, however the baseball-loving St. Louis rapper better known as Nelly is making news because of a tax debt — and because of the unique way that Nelly’s fans are coming to his rescue by streaming Nelly’s songs on Spotify and buying Nelly’s classic hits on iTunes.

Greg Hardy, The Rapper Nelly And Nicole Holder: 5-Feet, 10-Inch, 110-Pound Nicole And… https://t.co/1kci0dnSmV pic.twitter.com/FnMHxkr77O

— INQUISITR Entertainment (@IQShowbiz) November 7, 2015

As reported by BuzzFeed, fans of Nelly have put his songs on repeat to help put a big dent in the more than $2 million that Nelly owes the IRS, in order to help Nelly earn money through streaming revenue.

One popular tweet from Martenzie Johnson shows the lengths folks are willing to go to in order to do their part in helping Nelly get the 300 million or so streams that Nelly would need in order to get his $2.6 million IRS debt taken care of. Such tactics include putting Nelly’s song on repeat on Apple Music, iTunes, and Spotify in order to help Nelly earn money.

“I turned on ‘Hot in Herre’ on Apple Music and will leave it on repeat for the rest of the night. Join me #SaveNelly“

The entire venture of people streaming and buying Nelly’s songs to help take care of Nelly’s IRS debt has turned into the #SaveNelly campaign on social media. Some photos from social media display Nelly’s songs cracking the Top 100 iTunes songs at certain points during the day.

According to Market Watch, it is going to take plenty of streaming for Nelly to earn enough money to get his $2.56 million tax lien paid. The total amount represents money Nelly owes to the federal government, including nearly $150,000 owed to the Missouri Department of Revenue.

Nelly can be seen in the above photo at an NBA playoffs game, since Nelly is a Charlotte Hornets minority owner.

All of the tax debt is from Nelly’s 2013 tax year, with the government prepared to take Nelly’s assets if the tax debt is not satisfied. And so the streaming party of Nelly’s music has begun, with folks waxing nostalgic about all the memories they have that go along with certain Nelly songs as they stream Nelly’s music.

Songs like “Hot in Herre” might need to be played nearly 350,000,000 times on Google Play — at $0.0075 per stream — just to squash Nelly’s tax debt. That translates to about 25 million hours of “Hot in Herre” playing to have Nelly’s debt taken care of.

However, fans realize that they don’t actually have to listen to Nelly’s songs, but can put Nelly’s songs on mute and on repeat on their favorite streaming services and leave the songs streaming all night. Whether the #SaveNelly campaign works or not remains to be seen.

If all the streaming parties get Nelly out of his IRS debt, it will represent the power of social media getting behind a cause.

Nelly doesn’t appear to have addressed the #SaveNelly campaign as of this writing. On Facebook, Nelly added a new photo — and is receiving plenty of feedback.

On Twitter, the #SaveNelly campaign is being thwarted by some who don’t like the fact that Nelly reportedly said, “All lives matter.” Others are continuing to stream Nelly on Spotify to help Nelly’s tax situation.

Meanwhile, Nelly’s official Twitter account — @Nelly_Mo — is busy publicizing new music, with the “CEO of Nelly Inc, Derrty Ent.” not appearing to have commented on the #SaveNelly campaign yet on Twitter, either.

[Photo by Brynn Anderson/AP Images]