Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 09/01/06
Label: Bad Boy Records

So titled, one presumes, because you can't make gravy once you've chopped up the bones. "Duets (The Final Chapter)" isn't just desecration, it's decapitation - not so much a tribute as a rigorous assault on an entire body of work. For the diehards, it'll act as a curio - allowing the fans to eye-spy their way through the tracklisting, spotting which line came from which song - but for those drawn by the stellar supporting cast rather than Biggie himself, it's two albums and a legacy stained in an instant.

Make no mistake, although some of the contributions are clearly heartfelt, this album isn't about paying respects, yet again, to a fallen comrade. It's - oh the irony - all about the benjamins. And for the younger audience who know Biggie mostly by reputation, it's the equivalent of watching the coverage of a celebrity funeral just to see who shows up. There's Eminem, looking very tearful. Missy Elliot, stylish in black. Jay-Z, lovely speech. Here's the pallbearers - Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Ludacris, R Kelly. Even - and welcome to viewers from the Kerrang! channel - Korn are here. And is that, can it be…Bob Marley?!? Another prophet taken before his time. So touching.

Only P Diddy could have conceived such a vulgar display and he's on the defensive from the get-go. "Critics lashed, said I made a fortune off of his passin / All I did was build a dynasty, off of his passion." And anyway, if Diddy has benefited from his association with Notorious R.I.P Incorporated, then that's OK because "I took him from a coal to diamond, I moulded his mind." So really what he's saying is that this isn't Biggie's work that's being spot-welded together to make one last rickety vehicle, but Diddy's. It was all his idea in the first place.

If only Diddy had a thousandth of Biggie's brutal talent, so perfectly encapsulated in his dark, rasping delivery. But Diddy's talent is for populist mediocrity rather than anything genuinely startling. Perhaps the one jaw-dropping track here is notable for all the wrong reasons. "Hold Ya Head", the duet of sorts with Bob Marley, features the chorus from Marley's "Johnny Was", about the shooting of an innocent man in the street (are you receiving us at the back?), with the verses of Biggie's harrowing "Suicidal Thoughts". On one hand, you have a rapper knee-deep in self-hatred about his involvement in "drugs and extortion" - on the other a sweet vocal calling for peace. If it's meant to be an exercise in cruel irony, then it works perfectly. But somehow you feel that wasn't Diddy's intention.

As for the rest, it's just tributes and irrelevancy - perfectly decent songs ruined by reinvention, contexts and intentions trashed without any thought. As the man himself once said, you're nobody until somebody kills you. On this evidence, Biggie Smalls has been butchered enough.

    by Ian Watson