A take on Biggie's Duets, an excellent remix mixtape by DJ Cinema and DJ Mello and easily the best of many 2pac ones I've heard. Everything works from the beats matching the flow of the rappers to the good verses from Nas to Rakim to The Game and so on that you'll be able to recognise. Some of the beats used that I can recognise from the top of my head are Eminem's 'When I'm Gone' on 'Dear Mama Part II', Game's 'Don't Need Your Love' on 'Games We Play' and The Isley Brothers 'Between The Sheets' on 'Comin' on Strong'. Best Tracks: Juice, I Never Change, The Answer, Games We Play, Black Cotton.

It kind of surprises me that this doesn't have a better rep. While it took a bit of time to grow on me, there is very little here I don't find to be pretty damn good. The young black male, Pac, spits some great conscious/political lyrics, and the beats, while not brilliant, all work quite well. Sample heavy/radio friendly production like 'Rebel of the Underground', original dark tracks like 'Soulja's Story', and rawer beats like 'Trapped' offer a mixture in the production. While future albums such as 'Me Against the World' would surpass this, and Pac would become a bigger than Jesus figure in the world of rap, this is a good place to begin if you haven't checked out 2pac's discography as of yet. Underrated. Beats: ★★★★ Rapping/Bars: ★★★★★ Best Tracks: Trapped, Soulja's Story, I Don't Give a Fuck, If My Homie Calls, Brenda's Got a Baby, Part Time Mutha

This begins well with the singles being etched in my brain from many years ago. Two of the first three songs reminds you how good Scott Storch was. While 'Baby Boy' doesn't match the quality of the first two songs, 'Hip Hop Star' is forgettable and the first real problem. From there it gets less hip hop influenced and more towards general contemporary R&B ballads. 'Be With You' that borrows heavily from Bootsy Collins''I'd Rather Be With You' and 'Me, Myself and I' are good songs. 'Yes' goes nowhere. 'Signs' production and the way she sings is fine but the astrology lyrical BS makes it hard to take seriously. I hope she doesn't really believe it. It happens again, but with fewer astrology references in 'Gift From Virgo'. 'Speechless' is another slow one but feels a 'lil more vibey and musically interesting with some nice vocals. To end the album, 'Daddy' gets Freudian, - "I want my husband to be like my daddy..." The build-up and music is good but lyrically I find it odd. A front-loaded album with the four singles featured within the first six songs and there is nothing after 'Speechless' worth checking for. Beats: ★★☆ Vocals/Bars: ★★★ Hooks: ★★☆ Best Tracks: Crazy in Love, Naughty Girl, Me, Myself and I

I was looking at Fergie's wkipedia page and the amount of copies this and the associated singles sold is incredible. This moved 8 million units worldwide and her singles went gangbusters as well. Then I thought with the success of this, why wouldn't you put out another album ASAP, but I guess she could live off it, if all the BEP success wasn't enough. Anyway, did this deserve the commercial success? Probably not. I remember some of these singles when they were released six years ago. I never liked 'Fergalicious', but it does have a catchy tune and doesn't seem quite as bad today, and 'Glamorous' is one I've always got some enjoyment out of. Vocally Fergie reminds me of Mariah at times, although she obviously doesn't have the range in her pipes. While this isn't as bad as some people make it out to be, at the same time there are some annoying songs I hate, and the production isn't really my type of thing more often than not. Best Tracks: Glamorous, Velet, Big Girls Don't Cry

Before I rated this album today the only 0.5/5 I had given is to a Crazy Frog album and lets face it, if anything deserves a 0.5/5 that does. While I have never been a big fan of the Black Eyed Peas, in a way they always had some pop rap tracks that were a guilty pleasure with catchy tunes. 'The Energy Never Dies' though just has nothing remotely interesting. Even on the bonus disc the remixes apart from maybe 'Shut the Phunk Up' with George Clinton's Knee Deep sample there is nothing there either. Each album of the BEP's had been quite different moving more toward mainstream pop music and away from hip hop but this is more than I thought they would change. Lyrically it's generic also and lacks anything with substance. Some will love the change, some will hate.