Fabolous & Jadakiss - Friday on Elm Street

Fabolous & Jadakiss
Friday on Elm Street
2017
Spotify

On the next episode of 2000s rappers making a comeback we have Fabolous and Jadakiss teaming up for this new record Friday on Elm Street. While hip hop groups outside of Migos have struggled to breakthrough however big name collaborations have been quite successful. The first track "F vs. J Intro" sort of sets the stage for this very vague allusion to Freddy v. Jason vibe as well as a beat made from the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" theme song. If you are looking for the theme to blend in to every track prepare to be disappointed as it only barely makes an appearance. Yet Jadakiss and Fabolous are pretty good rappers and working together they sound pretty darn good, they just sound dated as all hell. Even when the beats start to feel a little more modern you can't help but hear the early 2000s when Jadakiss raps. At least Fabolous sounds a little similar to the rap of these days but Jadakiss just can't move forward. I will say this; compared to the most recent Cam'ron album Friday on Elm Street is damn near groundbreaking. The thing is when Kanye and Jay-Z teamed up for a record they were on the vanguard of whats hot, when Future and Young Thug did it this year you could even say they were a little behind the times, Jadakiss and Fabolous might as well be dinosaurs here. When they try to move into trap sounds on "Stand Up" which features Future it falls so incredibly flat leaving all three rappers sounding awful. If you want to shift your sound you can't just dip your toe in, you have to own it and go all out something Jadakiss and Fabolous are never willing to do on this one.

Every time they sort of get to something nice it just seems to vanish like they can't hold on to anything anymore. "Talk About It" feels so fucking preachy and makes the assumption that the song "won't be played on the radio" because of it's "edgy" take but the reason it won't be played is because it sucks. I get wanting to make a political statement but if what you have to say has been said 1,000 times and better by others why put it on an album? I think if Fabolous and Jadakiss are the two people we turn to when the world is spinning out of control then we have much bigger problems. Swizz Beats makes two appearances on this record with "Theme Music" and "I Pray" with the later being the absolute worst track on this record. You keep waiting for some redeeming value, something to make you fall back in love with these two but it never comes. Fabolous and Jadakiss may be legends in New York Hip Hop but I can't imagine this album getting play anywhere else. The remix of "Stand Up" is perhaps the only serviceable song on the whole thing leaving you with an album that feels wooden and dated from the jump. New York city might be celebrating with their royalty releasing new music but no one else is.

5.0 out of 10