21m-selling rapper Nelly performs to near-empty arena

This is savage. One of the biggest rappers of the 21st century just performed to a near-empty arena meant to house 10,000 screaming fans.

He’s sold more than 21 million albums in the US alone, but it seems rapper Nelly quite literally couldn’t give away tickets to his latest concert.

Footage circulating on social media in recent days shows the Hot In Herre rapper, 49, performing to a near-empty arena.

Video taken from seats on the side of the arena show a small crowd standing near the stage for Nelly’s set, before the camera pans to show the rest of the arena virtually empty.

As the footage circulated, many have spoken up to defend Nelly, with plenty of fans suggesting that the video must have been taken during a pre-show sound check.

Artists sometimes offer limited VIP tickets to fans with sound check access, which would explain the small crowd.

However, it seems more likely the footage is actually from a show that made local news last week due to its poor attendance: Nelly was enlisted last Tuesday to give a free performance to University of Florida at the campus’s Stephen C. O’Connell Centre, a venue which can hold more than 10,000 people.

Nelly gives it his all …

… all he needs is an audience.

But as local news network WUFT reported, the gig’s planned 7pm start time was pushed back as so few students had showed up.

“A larger crowd formed before Nelly’s onstage appearance at 8pm, but the arena seats were mostly empty,” WUFT reported.

“I definitely would have preferred if there were more people because it felt a little empty at the beginning,” 19-year-old student Jennifer Cardenas told the outlet.

Kids today don’t know how much of a banger Country Grammar (Hot S**t) truly is. Picture: GETTY

“Once he started with the music, it got better and I enjoyed it.”

Cardenas also confessed that she did not actually know who Nelly was.

He was perhaps the wrong artist to book to draw a crowd of 19-year-olds, given the majority of his biggest hits charted before they were actually born (Wanna feel old? Arguably his most enduring hits, the back-to-back billboard number ones Hot In Herre and Dilemma, both turn 22 this year).

WUFT reported that Nelly, who performed with his brother, fellow rapper City Spud, didn’t appear to take the poor attendance to heart.

“Because of you I am allowed to continue to perform shows like this that fulfil me,” he told the crowd.

Originally published as 21m-selling rapper Nelly performs to near-empty arena