He's got a joystick in his hand, he's playing himself and you're not going to wipe the smile off of Fabolous's grill.

"This Fab guy is great, he's crazy," Fab says as he watches himself on his tour bus TV screen.

During his stint on the Nellyville tour (see [article id="1457931"]"Nelly Brings Land Of Dreams (Dream Boats?) To Virginia For Tour Kickoff"[/article]), one of Fab's favorite things to do while he has downtime is play "NBA Live 2003," especially since he's a character in the sports game.

"They wanted me for the game. I was like, "Hell, yeah. I'll be in the game,' " Fab said last month while waiting to tape a segment for "Direct Effect."

"Then they was putting together a soundtrack and it [was released] around the dropping of my album. It was good press. They just mimicked me with a good player. They made me like a Kobe Bryant-type.

"It was hot. I wanted to see how they was going to have me moving around," he added, remembering playing himself in the game for the first time. "They also have Just Blaze, DJ Clue, Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg [as characters]. You just have to have the code and put that in. It's a good thing."

Fab hasn't had all that much time for playing games while on tour. A large portion of his time has been spent recording his sophomore album Street Dreams, which now drops on December 17.

"We're gonna have to push back a little bit," Fab explained the two-week delay. "I just wanted to make the album complete and make everything right."

Making sure everything is right means working on a tight time schedule.

"With the last album I had a lot of time," remembered Fab, who was heading to the studio after his taping. "With this one, I was doing a lot of things and didn't get a lot of time to marinate with the songs. I wouldn't say it was rushed, but last album, I could do a song and go back and listen to it a month later and say, 'Oh, I might want to change this.' Or listen to a song two or three months later and say, 'I might have a better part now.' Everything now I had to go on my first instinct. I might listen to a song again that night. If I didn't come with something else that night, that was it."

The tight schedule seems to have actually done the throwback jersey king some justice. Fabolous says he recorded too many songs and is in the process of trimming the album down. Of the songs that will definitely make the cut, Fab said he's using cuts produced by Trackmasters, DJ Clue and Duro (N.O.R.E.), Just Blaze (Cam'ron), Fingaz (Mariah Carey), Rick Rock (Xzibit), Kanye West and Precision, the man behind Fat Joe's recent hit "Crush Tonight." He also

has collaborations with Mary J. Blige and Ashanti and is working on a song that will feature 50 Cent and Jadakiss.

"The Mary J. Blige song is called 'My Life,' " he revealed. "It's kinda like an autobiography song, stating what I'm about and what I'm trying to do and what I've done.

"[For] the Ashanti song, we actually did the Tamia song 'So Into You.' It's a hot song, more of a ladies record, just saying what you would do when you so into your girl. 'I'm so into you and this is why.' It's like a 'Trade it All' kind of record. Ashanti did a excellent job."

His first single, "It's My Party," might remind you of Lesley Gore's 1963 hit by the same name.

"I came with that from just being in parties, and having so much fun in the party, it feels like it's your party," he explained. "You're having such a good time, whether it's the alcohol or something, it just feels like it's your party no matter what the reason of it. We just shot parts for the video up in Toronto (see [article id="1458179"]"Fabolous Shoots 'Party' Video, Dreams With Mary J. Blige"[/article]). We had [NBA star] Vince Carter come through, but we're gonna do an extra pick-up day in

New York for cameos. There's really nobody up there [in Toronto]."

"The concept of the [video] is, we just going to party and we trying to find the right party," he continued. "You might go to the 'hood party. ... Then you be like 'Let's go to something that's really poppin'.' So in the video, we hopped on the plane. We took our cars on the plane and flew down to Miami in the video. It was poppin' down there."

The most poppin' party of course is in Nellyville. Fab says he and his buddy from the Lou hang out often at the parties following their concerts.

"It's great, man. He has a wide audience, but the great thing about it is that you see an audience that's not really common to you," Fab said about rocking the diverse crowds Nelly packs into arenas. "You get to come out there and they get to hear your songs and you may make them a fan that night. You take advantage of that whole environment."