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Album
Review
Notorious B.I.G. - Duets: The Final Chapter Time to Officially Close the Book by: Malik Sinsear, for Entertainment
No dice. --Hold up, before we go on, I’ve got a couple questions: Why are you doing this to us, Puff? Why do you keep putting out these Biggie albums when you know the man didn’t write anything worth releasing post Life After Death? Why can’t you stop? Why won’t you stop…tainting the late, great’s legacy? Most importantly, why did you name this album after a bad 80’s FOX television show starring Larry Poindexter of General Hospital fame? Why?! Hopefully, Duets: The Final Chapter will live up to its name and be the last posthumous album we hear from Christopher Wallace until we get to the other side, or at least until we’ve all been Born Again in our Faith (ehhhhhh? x 2) and have gained a bit more patience to deal with such a superfluous release from the legend. A lot of the tracks on Duets simply sound forced. Biggie could have probably flowed over any variable noise in the universe; from an offbeat lunch table pounding to one of the 20 preset soundscapes on a Sharper Image Sound Soother machine when he was alive, but sadly he’s gone now and the way some of his verses are caked on top of these tracks (Wake Up Now featuring KoRN), they would turn Lil Kim’s MAC makeup case green with envy. Skewed rhymes and awkward pauses over the only good-in-spots production really hurt some songs and made others sound like your cousin (you know the DJ) arranged them. Sure, Nasty Girl featuring Nelly, Puff and 12 other people and 1970 Somethin’ featuring Game and Faith are stand out songs. I didn’t say the album was trash. It is a step up from Born Again, but when you put out the very last album (allegedly) from a Hip-Hop icon, you kind of expect more sparks to appear than a vigorous eye rub…I know I do. Overall,
this record just sounds too pieced together, which it is; and
if Puff wanted to do that, he could have just paid DJ Vlad and
Dirty Harry for the rights to the Biggie Rap Phenomenon mixtape.
Duets can’t hold a candle to that, “eh eh-eh
eh.” |
FIYA NBA Ranks: #9 |
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Ummm,
Biggie isn’t Tupac. There I said it. We were all thinking
it when we heard Puff was releasing another Biggie album and before
we delve any deeper into this, I just wanted to get that out of
the way. Not to discredit Big, but he’s not Tupac and for
some strange reason I feel like someone is trying to trick us
into believing he is or at least that he has as much material
as him. Well, George fucking Carlin doesn’t have as much
material as Pac so you can quit that, right now. Sorry if I’m
being harsh here; I know we all loved Biggie, but as a fan this
album truly tests how much you really do love the guy (pause).
You might be asking yourself, “Is it really a horrible
album?” Well no, not at all, but as Sunshine Anderson
(call me, girl) put it, we’ve simply
Heard It All Before. And by it, I mean everything; every
flow, every adlib and absolutely every verse…from Big, that
is. There are an additional 30 plus appearances provided by every
star in the Hip-Hop world, but I’ve got the feeling you’re
not here for the Bobby Valentino and Snoop 