by Damian Garde
Daily Lobo
Dead rappers need to stay dead.
Sure, Tupac totally killed it on "Who Do You Believe In," and Notorious BIG tore up "Juicy," but, as many of you may know, those men are dead.
The contributions of dead rappers to modern hip-hop follow the law of diminishing returns. As 'Pac was killed in 1996 with a wealth of unreleased material under his belt, his first posthumous release, R U Still Down?, had its share of gems. But after his catalog of unreleased a cappellas was continually pilfered for four more albums, we're beginning to scrape the barrel in 2006.
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Biggie's posthumous output has suffered from a different ailment. Diddy, his talentless benefactor, opted to reuse classic verses from old Biggie albums for Duets: The Final Chapter. However, Diddy's choice of guest artists was just a tad shy of Biggie's usual standard for collaboration. If Biggie were alive, would he really want to do a song with Nelly? Would he be tripping over himself to get down with Korn? In fact, despite its title, the album contains only three actual duets, with the rest of the tracks boasting a bunch of mush-mouthed new jacks stumbling over yawn-inducing crack-rap verses. Furthermore, with the exception of Jay-Z, Nas and Eminem, Biggie slays each of his collaborators.
Both artists also succumb to glaring anachronisms in their post-death careers. Duets boasted a song with Juelz Santana, who had celebrated his 14th birthday at the time of Biggie's death. Tupac's newest album features Lil' Scrappy, who was all of 12 years old when 'Pac died. While it could be argued that the inclusion of rappers who were battling puberty during Biggie and 'Pac's heydays is a testament to the timelessness of the dead rappers' work, it ends up just sounding like amateur hour.
It's certainly true that tacking a verse from a departed MC onto your new street single adds an air of authenticity to your everyday ghetto
anthem - Diddy's been riding Biggie's coattails for nigh on a decade - but can we all just stop with the hip-hop grave robbing?
The least these dead-rap swagger jackers can do is pick a new deceased MC to bite off of. I hear Big L's available.
Notorious BIG and Tupac
