Posthumous releases are largely regarded as a negative thing these days, mostly because of the unending string of releases from 2Pac’s vault. There are two issues that come with the releases; one is that they are rarely up to par with the work the artist put out when they were alive. Be it because it was material that was never meant to come out as it was intentionally left off an album, or because it was only partially completed and the powers that be take it upon themselves to complete the song as they see fit. The other issue is that the releases are nothing more than money-grubbing attempts by the label that owns the material.
All of these complaints are legit and understandable, but there is one thing that is often ignored; fans want to hear more music from their favorite emcee that was taken from the world prematurely. For some it is hard to take sides on the matter. For me, it is not. 2Pac left a huge catalogue of music behind, being a huge fan I was happy that all those double disks have seen the light of day. Those multiple double disks weren’t enough for Suge though, he had to put out that abomination of a remix album called “Nu-Mixx Klazzics” that did nothing but butcher Pac’s work in a pathetic attempt to pimp his shitty in house producers. To me, that is a clear difference of the right and wrong types of posthumous releases.
That said, take a guess as to which category “Duets: The Final Chapter” fall under? This isn’t new material from the black Frank White, it is just random verses of his thrown in with random guests with new beats and new titles. It is a sad release, not just because it is just fucking awful for the most part, but because Diddy should know better by now. Lord knows dude doesn’t need the money. The worst part is, it isn’t even done well. While it would be a gratuitous concept no matter what, it could still be really dope. Biggie, Jay and Nas over a Primo beat? Big and Pac over a Dre beat? Big and Meth again, this time over a RZA beat? Sign me up.
Instead we get Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and Lil Wayne hooking up with Big…oh wait a second, BIGGIE ISN’T EVEN ON THE TRACK! The only thing this album accomplishes is that it shows that 10 plus years later, Biggie is still shitting on all these new cats. Sure it is nice to hear Big and Jay together again, or him, Pac and Nas over a Just Blaze beat, but we didn’t need an album for those songs. It would be nice if the supposed best friend of one of hip-hop’s greatest would pay the respect that his legacy deserves…leaving it alone.
