More than three years after his death, it's difficult to believe there's still unreleased
2Pac material out there, much less quality material. After no less than three posthumous albums built around what
2Pac produced when he was still alive (plus an assortment of bootlegs making the rounds), the well apparently still hasn't run dry, and
Still I Rise is the inevitable result. As on the
Notorious B.I.G. album released just weeks before though, there are some pretty wide gaps on
Still I Rise between rhymes actually delivered by
2Pac. There's also an undeniable -- some would say obvious -- impression that this album just doesn't bear the mark of
2Pac himself.
Making up the difference in both categories is
Outlawz, a quartet of rappers keeping the flow going between
2Pac fragments. As with
2Pac's other posthumous releases,
Still I Rise comes with four or five solid tracks that may have survived the cuts on a real
2Pac album. The title track and "Letter to the President" are obvious winners, still reliant on the syrupy G-funk that
2Pac made famous, and (thankfully) not influenced by the increasing late-'90s insurgence of muzaky hip-hop productions. And "Baby Don't Cry (Keep Ya Head Up II)" --
2Pac's self-produced follow-up to 1993's "Keep Ya Head Up" -- is a surprisingly touching message track. For any of
2Pac's fans, it'll be so good to hear his voice again on new material that the cash-in nature of
Still I Rise can easily be overlooked. It's just not the album
2Pac would have produced had he still been alive. ~ John Bush