Nelly reportedly owes the IRS over $2.4 million, and the Internet has responded with a #SaveNellymovement.  Basically, fans are streaming the heck out of Nelly songs . . . trying to help him raise the money to pay off Uncle Sam.

The thing is, artists make almost NOTHING from streams, so a crowdfunding campaign would’ve been better.  A payout for a single stream is LESS than a penny, between $0.006 and $0.0084.

So, Nelly would need people to stream “Hot in Herre” more than 287 MILLION TIMES to pay off the debt and that’s IF he’s lucky enough to get the richer end of the payout range.  If not, he’ll need closer to 500 MILLION to cover it.