Nelly, Ciara And Jermaine Dupri Fondly Recall Sneakers

There are two types of raps about sneakers: labors of love like “My Adidas” and corporate shilling, like The Game making sure to mention Nike on almost every track on The Documentary. “Stepped On My J’s” is probably the latter. Nelly’s rap (which rhymes “what now?” with “what now?” and “crib” with “crib” and “crib”) is mere filler before he can awkwardly segue to the Do The Right Thing-quoting chorus, and Ciara (who sounds the best of the three) focuses on her beauty, but Jermanie Dupri plays the good spokesperson, describing the joy a young man feels when he dons his first pair of Jordans, and how one should collect them all. In the video, he even dresses up like Mars Blackmon. Ah, when ads were ads. [YouTube]