From the opening of Jay-Z's newest commercial outing, the title track of Best of Both Worlds, one might get the impression that the Jigga-man's beginning to stretch himself a little too thin. Since 1996, Jay-Z has put out at least one CD per year, beginning with 1996's Reasonable Doubt and culminating in the release of a record three albums over the past eight months: The Blueprint, Unplugged: Jay-Z, and now Best of Both Worlds with his frequent collaborator R. Kelly.
That being said, Best of Both Worlds comes across at times as a CD that was thrown together almost haphazardly. After five singles were unofficially released to radio stations throughout the nation in early February, Def Jam and Jive (the respective homes of Jay-Z and R. Kelly) pushed the album's release date up several weeks, resulting in its March 19th distribution. Whether this push-up resulted in the curious arrangement of the album has yet to be answered.
The Best of Both Worlds, meant to function as a street-club hybrid to get the CD off to a profound start, instead comes across as an intro-interlude that's been extended to lengths that even Jay and R. seem tired of towards the end. Complete with lines mentioning his Roc-a-fella famly ("Grieving for Aaliyah like the masses / But I hope my boy Dash gets to see her when he passes"), the track gets the album off to the wrong start and probably should have been dropped from the CD entirely.
Luckily things actually start to get going after this initial speed bump with "Take You Home With Me a.k.a. Body." After a quivery start on the title track R. Kelly finally gets to show off his talents; the lines "Girl you know you gotta body-ody-ody / I just wanna freak your body-ody-ody" are sure to be the ones banging in the clubs over the next couple of months.
It's also nice to hear Jay extolling the virtues of the ass-jeans: "Y'all know the first-date wearers / They make objects look bigger than they appear like a rearview mirror." Someone had to say it.
A curious trend with the album seems to be the producers' obsession with imitating the Jay-Z/R. Kelly hits of the past. Several of the album's cuts use the cut-and-paste formula to create near-sequels to past hits: "Green Light" featuring Beanie Sigel comes across as a more 1970s-oriented "Guilty Until Proven Innocent," complete with Timbaland staccato beats and Trackmaster-provided guitar riffs. One of the album's highlights, "Get This Money," sounds like a joint Jay and R. started right after finishing last year's "Fiesta" remix.
Some of the songs that seem inspired by a more R&B vibe, come across more as songs that were probably intended as a preview for R. Kelly's new CD, Loveland, coming later this year. Tracks such as "Naked" and "It Ain't Personal" barely feature Jay-Z at all, providing him with the occasional voice-over rather than full and genuine verses.
Another R. Kelly is his curious obsession with dissing Sisqo, something that occurs rather frequently on the album. As a good example, on "Green Light" he smoothly calls out "Bite my style / Tryin' to get rich ... Sisqo, don't make me kick ya out like a fool."
Another notable aspect that should be mentioned is the small number tracks featuring other artists. As already stated, "Green Light" features Beanie Sigel, with two other tracks featuring Lil' Kim and Devin the Dude ("Shake Ya Body" and Pussy", respectively). As anyone who might have heard "Renegade" from Jay-Z's The Blueprintwill tell you, Jigga was definitely wrecked on one of his own songs by Eminem, the only outside artist to be featured on that album (a fact which was also recently pointed out by Nas on his dig at Jay, "Ether").
The tracks featuring outside artists are clearly meant to show off the skills of the artists who made the album rather than the guest: on "Shake Ya Body", for example, Lil' Kim is relegated to coyly rapping the song's refrain and is given 16 verses of her own only at the conclusion.
Best of Both Worlds certainly has its high points but it can at times come across merely as Jay-Z's most recent cash-project. There's little doubt that the album will do well: bangers like "Take You Home With Me," "Get This Money" and "Honey" deserve the props that they'll invariably be receiving in the clubs; and a few of the album's more profound tracks, like the hood-inspired "The Streets," lend the CD some of its more serious moments devoted to things other than money and women. And, with uber-producers the Trackmasters providing the greater majority of the album's beats, radio airplay and commercial success are virtually guaranteed. On a Hopkins scale, Jay-Z and R. Kelly's collaborative project cleverly rides the curve to emerge with the passing grade of a C+.
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