Unless my memory deceives me, didn’t Christopher Wallace die around the same time as Diana? I know this because I remember Sting performing with Puff Diddy Daddy wearing a mourning suit. Anyway, while Diana has kept her public appearances to something of a minimum since, Biggie’s recording career has seemingly been unaffected. Now we reach Duets, optimistically subtitled The Final Chapter.
This could well be the case, as, on this evidence, there really is nothing left to scrape from the bottom of the barrel. All the album essentially offers is a bunch of old records with some people rapping over the top of them.
Admittedly the cast list reads like a who’s who of hip-hop – Eminem, Snoop, Ludacris, Nelly, Mary J Blige and Missy Elliot are all on the menu – but the whole project still has an air of the bizarre and distasteful about it; not least when the deceased rapper duets with 2 Pac and Bob Marley. ‘He’ even manages to come up with a thank you list.
Let’s hope that this really is the end.