Nelly doesn’t just have a talent for rap. He also claims to have a surprising gift: the ability to sleep through a baby screaming.
In a recent episode of “Nelly & Ashanti: We Belong Together,” steaming on Peacock, it was revealed that the 50-year-old musician has not been getting up at night when his infant son cries. Nelly and Ashanti are parents to Kareem, who turns 1 on July 18.
“You know what? It’s absolutely ridiculous that you’ll still be dead asleep and he’ll be mad loud,” Ashanti, 44, says in a clip from the series.
Nelly responds that he simply “doesn’t hear” the noise.
“It’s ridiculous,” she repeats.
“It’s a gift, I guess,” he replies. Moments later, he adds, “I’m blessed with that tune-out.”
Ashanti, however, isn’t impressed. She maintains that Nelly should also be pitching in for the inconvenient, bleary-eyed diaper changes.
That’s when Nelly reminds, “Baby, I said I’d give you the world. I just ain’t changing no diaper.”
Ashanti, visibly depleted, responds with an eye roll before turning her attention to her phone.
Earlier in the conversation, while discussing Nelly’s 54-stop global “Where’s the Party At” Tour, Ashanti reflected on the toll of his upcoming travel, saying, “It’s a lot.”
“Well, listen, it’s all you. I ain’t gonna even lie,” Nelly says. “You know, I ain’t got nothing for him.”
The cameras then cut to a scene of Nelly speaking with friends, where he jokes that until Kareem can say “I’m hungry” and “I need to use the bathroom,” Ashanti will have her hands full.
He adds that she should enjoy this phase, because, as he puts it, “as soon as he gets to walking and talking, he’ll be with the crew.”
Ashanti and (a well-rested) Nelly in 2024. Araya Doheny/Getty Images for Baby2Baby
Kareem is Ashanti’s first child and Nelly’s fifth. He also shares two children — Chanelle, 31, and Cornell III, 26 — with his ex-girlfriend Channetta Valentine. In addition, he adopted his late sister’s kids, Shawn and Sydney, after her passing in 2005.
In a recent interview with The Shade Room, Nelly described himself as “pretty much on cruise control with parenting,” but lit up when he spoke about the joy of watching Ashanti embrace motherhood for the first time.
“She knows I’m here. She knows she has the support. She knows whatever she needs I provide,” he said, with a laugh. “and that includes nannies!”
While every family divides responsibilities differently, parenting and youth development expert Dr. Deborah Gilboa says there are real risks when fathers opt out of caregiving tasks early on.
Skipping night feedings or diaper duty may seem like a practical way to stay rested and ready for work — especially if the mom is nursing — but “the problem with that is that it sets up a pattern,” Gilboa tells TODAY.com.
When dads remove themselves from daily caregiving when their children are infants, they risk becoming “at best, the assistant parent,” she explains, something that can chip away at their confidence and hold them back from growing into a full presence in their child’s life.
“They are really missing out on an opportunity to fully inhabit that role of parent,” she says.
Nelly and Ashanti are showing a new side of themselves in their new reality show. “For me personally it wasn’t a thing that I kind of wanted to do, but my husband was like ‘We’re doing it.’ He thought it was a good idea,” Ashanti told Access Hollywood’s guest correspondent Emily Orozco.
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