Christopher Wallace a.k.a. Biggie Smalls a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G. was one of the significant rappers of all-time. His combination of confidence, style and hustle is still unseen in today's game and his death (along with Tupac Shakur) was a tragic sign that this music needs to be an expression of life stories and not turn into a story in itself!

Since his death we've seen him resurface on Born Again , the first posthumous LP, which was met with lukewarm reviews and on a few mixes and Bad Boy products. Now we get the supposed final chapter of the Biggie catalogue, Duets: The Final Chapter featuring Biggie with some of the hottest artists out now! Does the LP add a stronger flame to Big's candle or would you rather pop in his old stuff?

Sad to say we'll grab Life After Death and Ready To Die any day over this LP because it often features Big rapping over beats not favorable to his flow and with people we know he beefed with or probably wouldn't collaborate with! A few examples would be Nelly, Korn, and Slim Thug (no disrespect to all). There are some real gems like "1970 Something" featuring Faith and The Game, who both hold their own,   "Nasty Girl" featuring Nelly, Diddy, Avery Storm and Jagged Edge over a Jazze Pha beat, which is a nice club remix, "Hold Ya Head" featuring Bob Marley and songs with Big Pun (" Get Your Grind On") and a explosive Nas, B.I.G., Mary J. Blige and 2Pac cut ("Living In Pain") but it feels forced and any B.I.G. fan who has heard the best of mixtapes and listened to his previous albums probably liked the original cuts better than these remixes.

I do have to give Diddy credit for helping to keep Biggie's name in the air so people never forget his impact and also him making Big and his family/friends Executive Producers but maybe we need to be glad the final chapter is here.   There is only so much you can do with mostly the same verses, choruses and ad-libs!   If you never heard Biggie I guess this would be ok but then again he had better stuff so I'd advise you start from the beginning and feel his rise and gloomy fall in human form to his props on Hip Hop's Mount Rapmore!

I'll give it 3 GeoGlobes!