There probably was greater demand for a Fabolous and Jadakiss collaborative album in 2002, but far less likelihood of it actually happening. At their commercial peak, the two were inverses of each other: Jadakiss, the grimy hardhead whose overt pop concessions never gave him a bigger single than the one with the 9/11 trutherism; Fabolous, flippant and frivolous, sounding effortless over the flossiest beats of the “MTV Cribs” era.
But on the time since, they’ve remained respected veterans with mixtapes and guest verses that play to their strengths without having to address their weaknesses: beat selection, development of a multi-layered personality, artistic evolution, the sort of things that result in great albums. And so what Summerland Tour is to KROQ, Friday on Elm Street is to Hot 97, a nostalgic package deal that consolidates all of the fond memories of past radio hits at the expense of everything that kept their CDs readily available at your local Disc Go Round.
Friday on Elm Street has been in development for damn near two years, so it can’t be accused of trying to bandwagon 21 Savage and Offset’s Without Warning. But their commitment to the slasher-flick aesthetic lasts about as long as the intro, which makes a more accurate sales pitch: Fab spends several bars working towards a Harold Miner gag, while Jadakiss rhymes over the drums from Notorious B.I.G.’s “Dead Wrong,” both serving as an ID check to clear out anyone under the age of 30.
Like basically everything the duo has done in the past decade, Fabolous and Jadakiss instead spend most of their time enumerating the countless ways in which the current generation are failing to respect a street code of bygone, gullier days. Their voices have aged exceedingly well, and few rappers savor a slightly past-its-prime namedrop quite like Fabolous, though his punchlines are just as likely to land like a punch to the groin, taking all of the air out of the room. If it isn’t obvious by now how much Big Sean picked up from the guy, groaners like, “I humbly put y’all in y’all fuckin’ place, that’s my OCD” should pass for a positive DNA test. Meanwhile, Jadakiss sounded like the proverbial gangster who got chubby and moved to Miami since the get-go, so tough talk always remains convincing, even when he’s face-to-face with Donald Trump “in my man cave watching CNN.”
Not surprisingly, this is where Jadakiss and Fabolous are most committed to putting a contemporary spin on ’80s horror, if only for one track. “Talk About It” is a fairly platitudinal survey of America’s political nightmare, though Fabolous shows some rare insight as a political thinker: “Kerr got the credit, forgot about Mark Jackson,” he raps, likely referring to the latter positioning the Warriors as NBA’s wokest team by calling to boycott Clippers games as a protest against Donald Sterling. This is the track that needs a Styles P guest appearance, as he echoed Jadakiss’ attack on the Clinton’s “super predator” policies (“Will Hillary release niggas that Bill locked up?”), in one of the most passionate and cogent arguments for black voter disengagement at the end of 2016. Instead, Styles shows up later on “Ice Pick” for what’s essentially an outtake from the Lox’s muted 2016 comeback, while Fabolous’ solo track “Nightmares Ain’t as Bad” closes out Friday on Elm Street with motivational mogul talk that negates the entire point of the project.
As with most of the duo's recent commercial projects, Friday on Elm Street forgoes its obvious throwback appeal to try to exist in a middle-school netherworld. There’s a distinct post-Tunnel Banger approach on Friday on Elm Street, as the duo hone in on flows traceable to The Black Album, others from a few years prior when New Yorkers had to learn how to ride southern beats on the fly. And yeah, Swizz Beatz is all over this thing, but it’s mostly reprising his hypeman role from Kanye West’s “Famous” and his one production credit is a fairly standard Marvin Gaye flip (“Theme Music”) rather than the happy-hardcore Casio abuse that resulted in so many Ruff Ryders anthems with Jadakiss. Whether or not it’s unfair to even dream of a We Are the Streets throwback, most of the production betrays its years in developmental limbo and features the same stainless steel trap beats from not-quite name producers (i.e., Tory Lanez producer C-Sick) that could’ve been given to Dave East, Uncle Murda or any other functional “bring New York back” type. Meanwhile, the inclusion of Future and French Montana suggest some level of commercial expectations, but there needs to be a stronger term than “phoned in” to describe their zen-like lack of engagement; the hooks on “Stand Up” and “All About It” are more like getting an away message from their assistant.
The problem isn’t that these two didn’t become the 2017 Gravediggaz; once the initial novelty wears off, the solo tracks stuffed at the end serve as a reminder of how little collaboration took place on Friday on Elm Street. The best crossover franchises of this sort—Run the Jewels, Without Warning—result from contrast or unexpected chemistry, something that presents well-known entities in an unfamiliar light. Just about every bar is sharply written and rapped and also could’ve been plucked from just about any project these two have done in the 21st century. Then again, if an enterprising Canal Street bootlegger did that in 2002 with a compilation of radio freestyles and guest verses intended to settle “top five” debates, it’d be the Fabolous/Jadakiss album we truly deserve—one more like Alien vs. Predator than Friday on Elm Street, a competition rather than a collaboration.
