The torrent of posthumous 2Pac releases is often deployed as evidence of poor quality control, but it's not his fault: Blame his handlers. Killuminati, the last album he oversaw, is one of the most economically spiteful albums ever made. Written and recorded over seven days the month before his September 1996 murder, it is a remarkable distillation of the paranoid megalomania that sustained him during his last years.

The fake news reporter — a durable hip-hop skit-character, if ever there was one — announces Pac's hit list: Nas, Jay-Z, "Mobb Sleep," "Notorious P.I.G." What "Bomb First," Killuminati's opening shot, lacks in lyrical deftness it makes up for in pure vitriol. "This be the realest shit I ever wrote," he hisses on "Against All Odds," another names-naming diss cut, and he sounds one step from utter madness. The production throughout is chaotic and dark, as on the plodding, dirge-like "Hail Mary" and the ghostly "Blasphemy." Even the album's breezier moments feel touched by darkness, independent of Makaveli's post-facto folklore. On the lilting "Me and My Girlfriend" — reprised years later by one-time rival Jay-Z and his girlfriend Beyoncé — 2Pac romances his firearm, keeping "her" loaded underneath his pillow.… read more »