Unfinished Business

After Jay and Kelly reconnected at the Fade to Black show, in late 2003, a decision was made for them to continue the work of Best of Both Worlds, and use up the leftover songs they had from those sessions. Released October 26, 2004, this record wasn’t plagued by the problems of the first, and a video for first single “Big Chips” was released prior to the album’s release.

The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 215k first week and going on to achieve platinum status. It featured performances from Memphis Bleek, Foxy Brown, Twista and even Slick Rick. The records were recorded remotely by Jay and Kells, rarely did they have a session together in the studio, preferring to email each other their respective parts.

They toured on the back of the release, titling it the Best of Both Worlds Tour, an unmitigated disaster which saw Kelly leave halfway through, and Jay continue on presenting a solo show “with friends.” After Kelly removed himself from a particular NY show, Jay went on Hot 97 with Angie Martinez to air out his grievances:

This is just disrespectful, [leaving the New York date]. Everybody better grab their Best of Both Worlds albums, because that’s it. It’s too much. Certain things aren’t meant to be.

Jay would later tell The Breakfast Club:

The hardest thing ever was going through those R. Kelly albums, you know he, it’s just, you never know how the situation is going to turn out. There’s an X Factor that you can’t even calculate in your mind, that can happen at any moment, and you’ll be like, in the hotel ready to make an announcement, it’s like ‘what?! what just happpened?’

Jay’s associate Ty-Ty was charged after the incident in New York, for pepper spraying Kelly when he tried to make his way to the stage.