Rating: NN
Now that Death Row capo Suge Knight is out of prison again, he’s back to the business of exploiting the seemingly bottomless supply of recordings made by Tupac Shakur before the gangsta poet died eight years ago. There’s no specific information about where or when the performances on Live took place, but the revised lyrics of Troublesome and references to his beef with Mobb Deep, Nas, Biggie Smalls and the whole Bad Boy posse situates the album circa 96, likely the Las Vegas House of Blues show from July 4 – two months prior to being gunned down. 2Pac is clearly fired up but sounds out of shape, breathlessly barking out rhymes that in many cases were too fresh for him to deliver with authority. Most interesting is track 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted – a rare collab with Snoop Dogg poorly recorded at Knight’s own Las Vegas 662 Club – which appears to be pointedly tacked on as a message to his former star rapper: invest in Kevlar.
