Those like me who grew up on 2Pac's music are torn about the validity of the posthumous albums. Everyone accepts Killuminati as canon because it was mostly finished during Pac's lifetime, but everything afterwards begs the question of why Pac chose not to release those songs, & if they were better left unreleased. On the other hand, 2Pac's music meant so much to so many people that, financial considerations aside, it seems only right to give the people what they want. Whatever the case, co-executive producers Afeni Shakur & Suge Knight must answer for the album's cheeky references to the theories that Pac wasn't dead. From the intro track that asks "where are these songs coming from?" & features a "T. Shakur" writing credit in the liner notes despite the impossibility of his having written anything in the track, to the words "expect me [...] I'm coming," after a few seconds of silence at the end of the last track. It's not as egregious as Eminem chopping up a dead man's vocals to shout out himself & Aftermath on the following album (we'll get to that later, whenever it pops up), but these efforts to fuel the conspiracy theories seem more like a Suge move than an Afeni one.
It's pretty obvious that this album exists so that "Thugz Mansion" could have a home. It's the last great 2Pac single, & the acoustic guitar version by J. Phoenix always brings a tear to my eye, whether it's the cut on this album with 1 Nas verse or the one on God's Son with 2. I love the occasional drum-less rap song, & Pac rapping about what heaven might look like for a street dude is an implicit indictment of white supremacy's efforts to control perspective. It's 2Pac's poetics at their finest, & I especially love all the references to the history of Black music, proving how close those figures are to the core of identity for the community he's speaking for. "Seen a show with Marvin Gaye last night, it had me shook/Drinking peppermint Schnapps with Jackie Wilson & Sam Cooke/Then some lady named Billie Holiday sang [...] Only God can save us/When Miles Davis cutting loose with the band."
The rest of the record is a mishmash of remixes, delete bin fodder, Outlawz feature-heavy tunes, & songs straight-up jacked from other compilations. The most interesting thing to me from a 2022 perspective is how you can see the South starting to take over--a Trick Daddy feature, a T.I. feature, & Jazze Pha bringing his typically smooth, sparkling production to 3 high-profile tracks--more than anybody else except Pac's frequent collaborator Johnny "J" himself. Speaking of Johnny "J", he laces a few beats with Southern flavor himself, like "Fuck 'Em All" with its Geto Boys-style guitar stabs. Most of the production, though, falls into a 3rd-rate G-funk pocket, with not enough sample chops & way too much MIDI, syncopated synth noodling, & overdramatic orchestral flourishes (see BRISS's "When We Ride on Our Enemies" remix). The best beat of this type is "Ghetto Star," produced by Go-Twice, with its atmospheric background vocals, but except for Jazzefizzle, production highlights are hard to come by on either disc.
That isn't to say there aren't some good songs. "Never Be Peace" is one of the better, more detailed expressions of Pac's "T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E." philosophy, & "Mama's Just a Little Girl" is a nice sentiment, even though it lives in the shadow of "Brenda's Got a Baby." Also on Pac's softer side, "My Block" is a great contemplative piece, but we already heard it (with a better beat by Easy Mo Bee) on The Show soundtrack. Unfortunately, disc 2 is way too loaded with Outlawz features--this may make me a heretic among 2Pac aficionados, but I have never liked any of the Outlawz & I always sit through their verses impatiently waiting to hear Pac again. I also have to mention "There U Go," yet another slut-shaming song that specializes in that double standard of expecting your girl to be faithful while you reserve the right to fool around. I'd say it sounded very mid-'90s, except I hear brand new songs with that same point of view today.
Even on the rejected songs, even on subpar remixes of songs you've heard before, 2Pac is never boring to listen to. This was an interesting revisit because of how dated everything felt--Better Dayz is as identifiably 2002 as R U Still Down? was identifiably 1997. That's how you know for sure that Pac was dead--an album with his input would have been ahead of the curve, not just reproducing whatever sounds were trendy. If he were alive, you can bet he would have sounded like himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment