When you're more hated throughout the world of hip hop than Nelly is you have to realize that surely this hatred isn't just simply jealously, but you are in fact committing one of the most heinous crimes against hip hop the world has known. Remember when hip hop represented the struggle on the streets rather than starring in a Reebok commercial and appearing in an EA Sports computer games.

"Street Dreams" is really as low as hip hop can go and with Nelly it already when lower than we possibly imagined. I mean how many raps can we have about women, fast cars and the bling bling and what exactly is Fabolous of all people adding to the genre. The fact that he's taking all the money and adding nothing to the art form or indeed back to the community is the reason why he's become such a figure of hatred. At least Nelly has "Hot In Herre" which was an anthem whichever way you looked at it, but on "Street Dreams" I'm struggling to find one decent tune. "Can't Let You Go" with Lil' Mo is ok in a laid back trashy way and "Up On Things" featuring Snoop is passable purely because of the Dr Dre style production and the way it's tailored specifically for Snoop himself. When you consider the fact that he's managed to get Missy Elliot ("Sickalicious")or Mary J Blige ("My Life") on the album it's clear that you can buy anything if the price is high enough because these artists have not appeared because they can flex their rhymes and jam together. On the other hand the appearance of Ashanti on "Into You" speaks volumes about what she's prepared to do for a pint and a bag of nuts.

I can appreciate that if you're under 10 and you don't know your Run DMC from your Black Eyed Peas you might consider this to be a great hip hop album for the noughties, but i'd like to think our readers have enough intelligence to leave this one on the shelves. This really is an album so bad that if it got leaked to the internet it really would be a waste of time downloading it.

Alex McCann