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Your support makes all the difference.Am I the only one who finds that there's something creepy about an exercise such as Duets: The Final Chapter, which features the dead rapper's vocals posthumously paired with more recent hip-hop stars' contributions? Especially when Biggie is "partnered" with other dead rappers such as 2Pac and Big Pun - the latter on a heavyweight collaboration also featuring Fat Joe, a line-up that would have tested the load-bearing of any studio floor had they recorded simultaneously. There's no denying the bankability of a stellar line-up that includes Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Nelly, Diddy, The Game, Scarface, Mary J Blige, R Kelly, Missy Elliott and Eminem - whose own debut album didn't appear until Biggie was two years in the ground - but the lyrical benefits are rather less evident, harnessed as they are to old lyrics such as "What's Beef?". Eminem circumnavigates the problem of having to deal with old or previously released material by reducing Biggie's input to a few grunts for "It Has Been Said", but elsewhere, the rewards are largely derived from the colourful inflections of the guests: the Dirty South twang of Ludacris, Snoop's louche panache, and, particularly, Nelly's slinky sensuality on "Nasty Girl", the catchiest number here.
DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Nasty Girl', 'It Has Been Said', 'Living the Life'
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