been plaguing his performances since rehearsals in September and had to resort to fixing them himself or hiring a professional. It also accused Jay-Z of being jealous of the 60/40 split R. Kelly had over the tour gross and thus conspired the events that occurred at Madison Square Garden pressured Atlantic Worldwide to remove him. Jay-Z countersued in January 2005, claiming R. Kelly showed erratic behavior that included: being periodically late or absent from meetings and rehearsals, missing deadlines for material, and sudden demands and requests that led to several concert delays and cancellations that resulted in loss of gross. R. Kelly's lawyers challenged it as "inaccurate smears of Mr. Kelly that are utterly irrelevant to the issues of the case". They further claimed it didn't deny that the rapper refused to work with R. Kelly after the Madison Square Garden incident and thus broke the contract. It was ultimately thrown out by a judge in May 2005, who agreed. Jay-Z referenced R. Kelly's lawsuit on a remix of the 2004 hip hop song, "Drop It Like It's Hot". These niggas givin' out cases like a liquor store Runnin' to the DA tryin' to get me for it All the money it made, I'm like forget the law I'm not 'fr-iz-aid, it J-iz-ay homie you got pl-iz-ayed Take it like a man, the flow ran you off the st-iz-age (go sit down) Wastin' ya time tryin' to sue S Dot tell ya lawyer Take that civil case and drop it like it's hot Ty Smith was arrested and charged with third-degree assault, which carried one year of prison, on November 12 for the pepper-spraying incident. In November 2005, R. Kelly filed another lawsuit against Jay-Z, claiming Smith was awarded with vice president of Def Jam's artist and repertoire. Regardless, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in 2006 in a plea deal that contained no jail time. Tour dates Critical reception The album received mixed to negative reviews from critics whom criticized the album for having the same theme as their previous outing and accused both artists of a cheap cash–in to promote their tour. Jon Caramanica of the Rolling Stone criticized Jay-Z's raps as boring. Rapreviews.com's Steve Juon judged the album as a tolerable release, saying "this time R. Kelly's peanut butter R&B is actually de-emphasized a little in favor of Jay-Z's hip-hop chocolate. That's fine by me, because it