Fabolous

Breezy, monumentally conceited, and blessed with an agile flow and mind for wordplay, Fabolous came closer than anyone to duplicating Jay-Z's singular personality at a time when the latter ruled hip-hop radio. But Fab never struck a workable balance between populism and egotism, a task perfected by his model, who uses one to reinforce the other. Only the off-message Eminem and, later, 50 Cent could truly share center stage with Jay -- confident though he may have been, Fabolous could never escape Jay-Z's shadow.

Still, Ghetto Fabolous went platinum, and rightfully so: Almost every song combines the sparkling beats of a top producer -- Timbaland, the Neptunes, Rockwilder, Just Blaze -- with whale-hunting hooks and Fab's lube-smooth rhymes. If the phrase "holla back" ever ends up in the dictionary, we will probably have the album's pager-sampling first single, "Young'n," to thank. Ditto the locution of "Keepin' It Gangsta," which, rather than intimating violence, suggests that maintaining the gangsta lifestyle merely involves drinking expensive champagne and dancing the night away.

Even boring people can be fun at parties. Fabolous, like any other pompous jerk, loses himself in the moment. Plus, changing Biggie's famous line from "I see some ladies tonight that should be havin' my baby" to "I see some ladies tonight that should be drinkin' my babies" -- swallowing, that is -- makes a fine joke, if not a pickup line. Unfortunately, on Street Dreams, Fab's big head gets squeezed into a narrow R&B format that he's simply not sexy enough to inhabit. Too tastefully produced not to score airtime, the first single and typical track "Can't Let You Go" slinks sleepily and finds Fab asserting that "the barrel of [his] gun's big enough to spit out a rocket -- oh!" That's a lame attempt at keepin' it gangsta. (NICK CATUCCI)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide