 Me
Against the World
Is it just me or does every 2Pac song sound
exactly the same? Something about the step-slide-step beat,
that exact same tempo, and his trademark cadence makes his tunes
about drug dealin', shootin' and niggas blend together like
milk in a pot of cream. I mean, how many times can you use the
word "cemetery" in a song? (And why would you want to, what
with it not rhyming with practically anything?) Between the
contradictions--I love women/I hate bitches, guns and drugs
are bad/people who use guns and sell drugs are good--and some
seriously candy-ass tracks, I'm not sure what the hype is about.
Wasn't this the goofy, smiling dude from the
Digital Underground video? |
2Pacalypse Now
I guess in retrospect it's nice to hear rap
that isn't about bling and rims. Granted, 2Pac is still kind
of a one note guy. His music is about being hard. At best this
one tries to ride the anti-America, pro-black gangster style
of Ice Cube. This is an album filled
with Tupac trying to find his own voice. The lyrics are less
mature, but somehow the songs seem better constructed than those
on some of his later albums. Maybe I just love sampling. There
is still a trace of youthful enthusiasm and humor here that's
missing from his later work. Despite this, the blueprint for
the violent, paranoid walking contradiction was well laid out
here. At least there's less crappy r&b singing all over the
place, and the predictions of his death are more subdued. He
is not yet larger than life, but merely a hungry rapper looking
to make a name for himself. |
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