Over the years I've posted about hundreds of albums. For various reasons, they are projects that spoke to me at the time of their release - whether specific songs, the album as a whole; some cultural significance or just a reminder of specific moment(s) that project was the soundtrack to at the time. Enter nostalgia... sometimes when we look back at projects, we realize they were not looked at favorably at the time, lol. I can understand why journalists consider it a cheat code and think in some ways it misrepresents the real history... it's a fairytale version. Well, "Hail Mary" was a tremendous song at the time, and sure, I remember "To Live & Die In L.A." and "Toss It Up," too. 2Pac's "The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory" was released just two months after his death, so the hype was at peak levels. In November 1996, David Browne of Entertainment Weekly reviewed the album and had these choice words to say about it: "The Don Killuminati/The 7 Day Theory," was credited not to 2Pac but to an alter ego, Makaveli. In this regard, Death Row has done right by him: If Shakur were alive to hear this mess, he wouldn't want his name on it, either... Posthumous records are old news in the music business, but The Don Killuminati truly feels like a work in progress... if Shakur had been planning an album playing off Machiavelli's theories on power, he neither thought it through nor completed it. The songs have only fleeting references to "Makaveli" and occasional bits of Machiavellian advice ("Keep your enemies close/N!%%a, watch your homies").... Cont'd below...
Dr. Dre and his posse livened up Shakur's previous album, All Eyez on Me, but with Dre gone from Death Row, lesser-known producers were called in. The results are plodding, amateurish gangsta rap. The album is top-heavy with cameos from second-rate rappers, and the depths of absurdity are reached on "Toss It Up," which grafts a vitriolic Shakur rap onto a standard new-jack strut. The Don Killuminati isn't just a mop-up operation; it's a disgraceful exploitation that dishonors Shakur's music and legacy... it's important to remember that Shakur had a cultural legacy. In the world of hip-hop, success comes with a price: Acquire too much fame and wealth and your friends start wondering if you've lost touch with the streets. The only remedy is to act harder... Put-downs have always played an important role in rap. But on this shameful cash-in, Tupac Shakur is the only one truly being dissed. - EW. However you see this album, it's still a part of Pac's legacy. Revisit it up above...
