For the most part, “Nelly & Ashanti: We Belong Together” is one of the most entertaining PSAs for circling the block that I’ve ever seen.
The couple famously dated on and off throughout the 2000s, and then rumors started swirling that they broke up in 2013. (Ashanti confirmed their split in 2015.) They appeared to rekindle their relationship in April 2023 after being spotted holding hands at a boxing match in Las Vegas.
In the series premiere, “Breakup 2 Makeup,” the couple jumps right into where their lives stand now: married, united, with a new baby and enjoying each other’s company.
It’s not surprising that “Nelly & Ashanti” is already charting high on Peacock, where it premiered last Thursday. It’s generating a lot of internet chatter for two very different reasons: how much the couple cackles with each other, as noted by People, and how upset people have been about Nelly’s comments about parenting.
On the show, Nelly complains — jokingly yet repeatedly — that “nobody cares about dad” and that he’s in“second place” since the new baby arrived in July of last year. Many people across social media have also taken issue with Nelly’s declaration that he is not changing diapers.
“It’s all you, I ain’t even gonna lie,” Nelly tells Ashanti on the show. “You know I ain’t got nothing for him.”
His rationale is that he is rich and willing to pay for as many nannies as possible; therefore, he’s not doing it. As a gay uncle who changed a lot of diapers at one point in my life, I am not aligning myself with Nelly on this topic. But I will say that many men, regardless of tax bracket, agree with him about not changing diapers.
The show also explores Nelly’s infamous choice to perform at President Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration.
“I feel like this is an opportunity for me,” Nelly tells Ashanti while debating whether to perform.
“For me, the politics is over,” he continued. “We’re talking about performing for the president. Ain’t no other president ask me a damn thing.”
For Nelly, who says he was born on a military base and has had several family members serve in the military, if they are willing to do their duties for presidents not of their choosing, he could perform for Trump.
Nelly also takes aim at critics who think Trump is using him as a performer because of his race.
“Are you for DEI or not?” he quips in the confessional, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which have been systematically dismantled in the Trump administration.
Ashanti is visibly not aligned with this position, but she listens to her husband speak, and, even when pressed by probing producers, does not publicly go against him. Her mother and momager Tina Douglas offers the most clues about her daughter’s position when she mentions that her father was incredibly active in the civil rights movement. I don’t fault Ashanti for not saying anything; it’s her husband, and it’s a sensitive topic.
Nelly does not regret his decision, but he does seem to recognize how his decision impacted others. After the inauguration, social media users piled on Ashanti and even their baby boy, KK, for Nelly’s decision to perform.
I do find it unfair to hold Ashanti accountable for the positions of her husband. As for Nelly’s position, it would be reductive to reduce him to a MAGA bot after hearing his explanation for going through with the performance.
If you can look past these controversies, “Nelly & Ashanti: We Belong Together” is a nice throwback to more “wholesome” reality shows of the early 2000s. Yes, somehow, a rapper and an R&B singer joking a lot about themselves and their sex lives while making turkey bacon and figuring out where to live reminds me of simpler times in reality television.
On the show, the two are living in a temporary apartment in Long Island. Ashanti, a New Yorker, wants to live in NYC, but her husband says that before they got married, he told her that he did not want to live in the area full time.
Nelly stresses that he is “too St. Louis” in spirit, business and preferred taxing codes to leave.
Moreover, “Y’all got a lot of rats,” he muses to his wife.
That issue will not be settled over the course of eight episodes, but I found myself highly entertained watching them figure their lives out.
Ashanti has always shown an affable personality in interviews, but reality TV is a different medium — even with an executive producer title. But the Princess of Hip Hop and R&B is very natural and very much herself on the show, which makes for good television.
She is, admittedly, not a punctual person, and that does present its problems. As a new mom, particularly one later in life, as she shares, she loves-loves-loves her baby KK, with the kind of zeal he’ll hopefully appreciate when he’s old enough to process it himself. (I appreciate that, on his behalf, he is only featured on camera with a blurred face.)
As for Nelly, I forgot that he is technically a reality TV pro at this point. His first show, “Nellyville,” premiered on BET a little more than a decade ago.
The two of them together are enjoyable to watch because they come across as two people who understand the mistakes that broke them up years ago and are striving not to repeat them.
I don’t know if everyone should go back to that old thing, but I hope I can watch more of these two doing it.
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