Better Dayz

OK, one of two things is going on here: either Tupac is still alive or Suge Knight and his cronies have found someone who can pass for him on the mic. How else can you explain the existence of Better Dayz, which is not only his seventh posthumous album, but a fucking double album at that? It’s not like the keepers of his eternal flame are scraping the bottom of the barrel here, finding snippets of recorded Tupac conversations and packaging them around a plethora of guest shots from other rappers. There are over 20 legitimate new songs here and many of them, notably the loungy “Late Night” and the acoustic, Nas-aided “Thugz Mansion,” (where he rhymes, incidentally, about the great band they’ve got in heaven), are pretty damn good. I mean, if you want to quibble, you could complain that Tupac has shown very little artistic growth since his death, but, well, he is dead, after all. Or so we’re told.