Pac's Life?
Following the upcoming release of the Tupac Sakur biographical movie "Pac's Life" and also the new album of the same name, I felt it might be time to ask the question, is it time to let Tupac rest for good?
I fully appreciate the man that was Tupac , he was inspirational and talented in a massive amount of ways, a poet, singer, rapper, songwriter, actor and all round activist, he was a man who did things his way and stood up for what he believed in. I think that it may be time to stop whatever commercial media train that is driving what I feel is an attempt to cash in on the Tupac fans rather than a real tribute to a great man.
This album is full of well produced decent sounding singles with contributions from popular artists of our time, including the unique stylings of rappers T.I and Ludacris as well as vocal talents of Keyshia Cole and Ashanti. Even with this ability at hand this album never once feels like "Tupac", at some points the samples of Pac are frankly terribly dubbed onto the tracks, for example, the title tracks "everybody needs to chill" line from Pac that is pushed into the record awkwardly every couple of seconds. It feels forced and unnatural. The tracks sometimes feel overly produced and do not sound like the sound of Tupac at all, there are a few moments of vintage Pac on this record but they are few and far between, listening to the record you can't help but feel that they have scrapped the bottom of the Tupac recording barrel and just about managed to create an LP out of it.
In conclusion, this album is listenable if you are a modern hip-hop fan, it contains some tight production values with some well produced lyrics, it is very slick and also very commercial. The problem is, Pac just feels over powered by it, it feels like a chance for every other artist on the album to raise there profile rather than remember Tupac's legacy, and with reports of a 7th post death studio album in the works I fear it could be even worse than the last.
I am always for the remembrance of great artists as one of my favourite artists was the late great Aaliyah, who I think has been remembered very respectively in the past. I just believe that the Amaru entertainment group should take more control over the next album and make sure it is something truly special to remember the man himself.
Title: Pac's Life
Artist: Tupac Shakur (Various Contribution)
Producer(s): L.T Hutton, Sha Money XL, Swizz Beats, QD3, Canei Finch, Carvin & Ivan, Salih, E.D.I.
Label: Amaru Entertainment
Rating: ***
