Pac's Life [PA] (CD - 2006)

Audio Mixer: Claudio Cueni.

Liner Note Author: Afeni Shakur.

Recording information: 11th Stredt Studios, Atlanta, GA; Cam Am, Tarzana, CA; Can Am, Burbank, CA; Echo Studio, Atlanta, GA; Home Cookin' Studios, Philadelphia, PA; Integrated, New York, NY; Monza Studios, NY; Swiss Mix Studios, Hollywood, CA; The Program, Hollywood, CA; Zac's Studios.

The fact that PAC'S LIFE, from 2006, was Tupac Shakur's 11th posthumous album is even more staggering when considering he had released only four albums at the time of his death in 1996. Equally mind-boggling is the fact that Pac is able to outshine virtually every other MC placed beside him, even this deep into his scrap heap. Swizz Beatz, Sha Money XL, LT Hutton, Salih, QDIII, and Canei Finch do the honors on production here, while original performances from T.I., Ludacris, Layzie Bone, Ashanti, Carl Thomas, Chamillionaire, Lil Scrappy, Keshia Cole, and Snoop Dogg, among others, blend with Pac to bring him back from the grave one more time.

The fact that PAC'S LIFE, from 2006, was Tupac Shakur's 11th posthumous album is even more staggering when considering he had released only four albums at the time of his death in 1996. Equally mind-boggling is the fact that Pac is able to outshine virtually every other MC placed beside him, even this deep into his scrap heap. Swizz Beatz, Sha Money XL, LT Hutton, Salih, QDIII, and Canei Finch do the honors on production here, while original performances from T.I., Ludacris, Layzie Bone, Ashanti, Carl Thomas, Chamillionaire, Lil Scrappy, Keshia Cole, and Snoop Dogg, among others, blend with Pac to bring him back from the grave one more time.

More prolific dead than alive (well, not really, but the amount of records issued by the Californian rapper after September 13, 1996, far outweigh the number issued before), 2Pac has -- mostly thanks to his mother, Afeni Shakur -- come out with another release, ten years after his death. Despite the fact that Pac's Life claims to be comprised of all (minus one verse) previously unheard material, most of the rhymes on the album have been floating around the Internet or on unofficial (and possibly illegal) bootlegs for some time now, which makes listening a little anticlimactic. This isn't to say that there is not some great material on Pac's Life, because there is ("Watch and bear witness to the pleasures of participation/Separation and self-destruction, what's needed is unification," he spits in "Whatz Next"), but the power of 2Pac's words is often lost behind the modern production (from Sha Money XL and L.T. Hutton, among others) and new verses from artists like Ludacris, Lil Scrappy, Ashanti, and Young Buck. It's understandable that Ms. Shakur and her collaborators want to continue to promote 2Pac and his music in the world, and that one way of going about this could be by modernizing the beats, but unfortunately it doesn't quite work here, and everything ends up sounding a bit commercialized, and a bit dull. There are still some bright spots on Pac's Life -- he was too talented, and recorded so much to have it be otherwise -- that could be of some interest to fans, and keep the album from being a total loss: "Don't Sleep" has a nice soft intensity, while the single "Untouchable" (produced and remixed by Swizz Beatz and featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony) has a great, catchy hook, and "Soon as I Get Home" is fantastic, probably the best track on the album, mostly because the original production by QDIII hasn't been changed at all; but still, this isn't enough to make the album good. All in all, Pac's Life is a nice attempt, but it comes nowhere close to showing off his talent as something like All Eyez on Me or Me Against the World does, and ends up being kind of disappointing because of that. ~ Marisa Brown minimize