Pitchfork

Jay-Z and R. Kelly don't like each other. They've been canceling dates on their co-headlining tour, and the rumors are flying. Kelly doesn't like that Jay got a better reception at the tour's opening show in Chicago. Jay doesn't like that Kelly simulates sex with two women in a cage/jail cell as part of his act. When they're onstage together, they barely look at each other.

So why did they make another album together? It could be for money, but neither of these guys is going digging for change anytime soon. It's not for artistic reasons; both are firmly on autopilot here. So it would seem, then, that their reasons are entirely egotistical. In March 2002, the pair released The Best of Both Worlds, a collaborative album hyped as a blockbuster union of the two brightest stars in R&B and hip-hop. But within a few weeks of the album's release, a bootleg video of Kelly allegedly having really, really nasty sex with an underage girl surfaced. Radio stayed off the album like it was infected, and the artists never even bothered to make a video. As a result, the album was a relative flop, failing to sell even one million copies. Neither artist could cope with that sort of blot on their resumes, so now we get Unfinished Business. "In the first week, I predict a million sold," posits Kelly on "Big Chips".

Unfinished Business is a decidedly minor work from both artists; neither strays from his comfort zone. Jay doesn't indulge in any of The Black Album's bittersweet introspection, and Kelly almost doesn't mention Jesus. Instead, they're both in full VIP-section pimp glide, leaning hard, stepping past bouncers, blowing cigar smoke with a girl on each arm and donning immaculately perfect white suits. They're all smoke and mirrors.

Most of the album's beats are reworkings of Best of Both Worlds tracks, and they sound oddly dated. Like Both Worlds, the entire album was produced by the Trackmasters, a Neptunes-lite duo who peaked around 2001 and who haven't been finding a lot of work since. Their sound-- flanged acoustic guitars, jazz-funk piano plinks, rippling clicks-- is so clean you could eat off it. It's the sound of richer, happier times. Sometimes it's effective; they deploy burbling synthesized flamenco guitars on "Mo' Money" and a bazonkers gospel choir on "Don't Let Me Die" to great effect. But they also deliver "Feelin' You in Stereo" and "Break Up (That's All We Do)", some weak-ass bourgie mid-90s slow jam shit. And in 2004, Jay-Z has no business rapping on a track that could've been a City High remix three years ago.

So, then, is Jay still retired or what? He knows you're thinking it: "Y'all nervous/ I ain't back yet/ I'm on extended vaca/ I ain't unpacked yet," he says on "Stop". It's a point he makes very clearly over the course of this record; he's not truly present here, and rarely contributes more than a cameo. This is primarily Kelly's album, and he plays it to the hilt-- all effortless, honey-dripping purr. Sometimes he's Nate Dogg-level lazy, but that falsetto is powerful enough to have put some of the most shocking allegations in R&B's storied history a mere footnote to his career. And! He raps! Kelly makes a surprisingly spry emcee, dropping lines in a crisp, lilting, fussy sing-song cadence that bites Slick Rick so hard you almost don't notice when the real Slick Rick shows up at the end of the album. On "Mo' Money", Kelly follows a typically dazzling jackhammer Twista cameo with his own take on Midwest speed-rap, acquitting himself so impressively that Jay has to pull out some weird, breathless, gasping flow shit to top him.

For his part, Jay pretty much sticks with tossed-off playa-isms about whips and jewels and getting this paper. We've heard it before, but he still does it better than anyone else, rolling syllables around for entire verses just for fun. You can hear the joy in his voice when he drops bon mots like, "Take a photo/ Last time you see a nigga so cold/ So below zero, so froze/ So-so rappers are so sore in the soul/ Ain't my fault I'm so rock 'n' roll," on "We Got 'Em Goin'".

Unfinished Business is a light, breezy listen, and surprisingly solid for an album with no real reason to exist from two guys who can't stand each other. But of course, Jay and Kelly are masters of effortlessness-- they can make music in their sleep, and here, that's pretty much what they've done.