Favorite Albums: 2000-2004
33. R. Kelly & Jay-Z, Unfinished Business
Original position on my Stylus ballot: n/a
Jay-Z: the first rapper to navigate hard and soft into well-paid icon status without getting shot or distracted by acting roles. R. Kelly: the post-hiphop Marvin Gaye who could collaborate with Celine Dion and Nas on the same album. Their original team-up was cut short when Kelly turned out to be even freakier than advertised, but after he proved his commercial resilience, Jay-Z consented to accepting another paycheck. Hence, we received this re-think of the far duller Best Of Both Worlds that one guy put a lot more effort into than the other. Thankfully, it was the guy who’d unleashed his eccentric, profilic muse under the threat of incarceration and not the one pondering an industry day job.
I wrote a whole piece on Business for Stylus in 2005, which covers the wacky specifics well enough. Due to the album’s brevity and froth, I find it more front-to-back entertaining than any full-length Kelly had dropped up to this point (though I enjoy Jay-Z’s nineties work a lot more than I did when I wrote that essay). I still wonder how Jay’s chorus would have changed on “Don’t Let Me Die” if he’d heard Kelly’s verses first. I mean, there’s no way he knew what R was saying…is there?
