2pacalypse Now [PA] by 2Pac

1. young black male (***)
2. Trapped (****)
3. Souljah's story (*****)
4. I don't give a f**k (****)
5. Violent (****)
6. Words of wisdom (*****)
7. something wicked (****)
8. crooked a$$ n***a (****)
9. if my homie calls (*****)
10. brenda's got a baby (****)
11. Tha lunatic (****)
12. Rebel of the underground (***)
13. Part time mutha (****)

The album kicks off with young black male. This song has a nice beat with a looping piano sound and a heavy baseline. The flow on this track is nice, but the rhyming's not exactly perfect and the subject matter of this song just seems to be nothing in particular. This song doesn't show much creativity in the lyircs.

The next song is trapped. This song is a decent track for the album. The beat is well made. It includes a siren, a decent bassline, a good drumloop, a synthesisor, some scratching and a voice. The siren is good for the subject of this song, which is police against black america. The flow is quite good. The only problem I find with this song though is that the rhyming is just about below average. If the rhyming was a bit better I would have rated it 5 stars.

The 3rd track is an impressive souljah's story. A good thing about this song is the beat. It has a dark baseline with a nice flowing piano loop, a drum loop, a cool violin sound over the top of this and some nice scratching. The rhyming on this track is very good and the flow in the rapping is good. The concept of this song is clever. It has 2pac playing 2 people, an older brother and a younger brother. The 1st verse is the older brother who talks about his life as an african american on the streets and compares it to being a souldier. He talks about how he's being a souldier fighting for blacks against police. Then he says, his little brother wants to follow in his foot steps. The 2nd verse is his little brother also rapped by 2pac and has the same kind of theme. A classic track by 2pac here.

The next song is I don't give a f**k. This is an average song, but not exactly good. The concept is quite good, but the flow isn't to full scale, but the rhyming is good a lot of the time. The beat includes a drum beat, a bassline, a kind of clicking sound and a few different styles of synthesisers. It's a good beat. The concept of this song is the message that a lot of black people get treated differently to white people and he has just given up caring about police and stuff.

The next song is violent. This has a good beat of a drum loop, a bassline, a kind of ska sound, some voice loops and a few kind of jazzy sounds. This song includes good amounts of story telling of the black people against police he witnessed growing up in Oakland. He also talks about how everyone's accusing him of being violent just because he speaks against how black people are being treated and may start some violence from standing up for his race. The rhymes on this song are above average but I would say that his flow is very week.

Track 6 is called words of wisdom. I think this song is one of the best on the CDs. This beat is good. It has a drum beat, a bass line, a nice jazzy tune, some sound effects, an organ loop and a kind of triangle sound added to the percussion. 2pac spits a very nice flow on this song, showing good rhyming skills. The message of this song is that the government has ruined the country in a lot of ways. He talks about how black people have been treated badly in the past and the history of black people fighting back.

The next song is something wicked. This track has a good beat of a drum loop, a bass line, some vibe tunes, DJ scratching and a sampled voice loop of someone saying Brooklyn. This track shows no creative subject of 2pacs, just things about himself doing crime, smoking, etc, nothing that great, but his rhymes and his flow make up for that. So this song was improved a bit, but not exactly a classic, just good to listen to for the speed of his raps and the rhyming skills.

The next song is crooked A$$ ni99a. This song has a good beat with a drum loop, a bass line, a few synthesysers and some scratching. In this song, 2pac tells a story of being robbed by some guy in the street and 2pac tries to chase him to shoot him down. Then a cop gets in the way and 2pac has to shoot the cop to get to the robber. After shooting the cop, 2pac manages to shoot the robber. The 2nd verse isn't that great, it just has stretch talking about how he's someone in the streets the cops wouldn't like. The 3rd verse, 2pac just talks about how much his gun means to him. The flow on this song is good, but I don't think the rhyming was as good as it could have been. I think Stretch ruined this song a bit, but it's a good track to listen to.

The next song is the classic If my homies calls. This song has an extremely good beat with a drum loop, a variety of bass lines, a piano loop and some synthesiser sounds. The concept of this song is 2pac looking out for someone he grew up with. He tells stories about him and his homie growing up and then talks about how they both changed the older they got. The last verse talks about what's happening in life now. He says that whenever something goes wrong he'll be there to help out. The rhyming is good in this song and improves through each verse. The flow is above average and I think this song's a very good 2pac classic.

Track 10 is the well known soulful poetic brenda's got a baby. The beat is of a drum loop, a bass line, a violin and a few synthesisor tunes. 2pac tells an emotional story about a girl called Brenda who grew up in a poor family and got molested by her cousin, then she ended up pregnant and through the baby in the trash. 2pac then talks about how she's completly distressed after this and needs money so she ends up selling crack, then she ran out of crack to sell so she sold herself, then got murdered. Seems like crazy stuff. 2pac also raps well and shows some good rhymes here. Now I know what you're thinking, why did I put 4 stars? Well the thing is that really annoyed me about this song is that it does try and appeal to the pop crowd quite a lot, but it's a very good track, so I can't complain much about it.

Track 11 is called tha lunatic. Tha lunatic has a good beat with a drum beat, a bass line, some jazzy tunes, a piano loop and a few synthesisor variations. I think 2pac spits a nice flow on this song. This song uses some good metaphors in the 2nd verse, eg...
"Leave me the f**k alone, you gets none of this
It's suicidal, you lose your title like Doug-las
Cause I'm nothin nice and, I'm icin like Tyson
I'm grippin the mic and, my DJ is slicin."
"I'm tired of motherf**kers steppin to me with the SAME OLD
Tryin to do me like Nintendo
How the f**k you think I ever got this far?
By bootin motherf**kers like a shootin star"
There's more like that through the song. Except the only problem I seem to find with the song is that the rhyming's not above average. So I'm giving this 4 stars.

The next song is rebel of the underground. This song has a good beat with a drum loop, a familiar sounding tune, some sound effects, a bass line and some voice loops. The problem I find with this song is that there's not much subject of what 2pac's saying here, just that he's rebellious. His rhymes in this song aren't exactly up to scale, but his flow seems right. So I'm giving this 3 stars.

The last song is the pop appealing part time mutha. The beat enters with a drum loop, a bass line, a piano loop, some scratching and a synthesisor. 2pac's flow on this song is really nice. The concept is very good, it talks about how sometimes things have really gone wrong and you have to be the one put in the place of dealing with another persons situation. The rhyming on this track is good in most places, but at some points are a bit bad, but overall it's a good track.


This album was a good start by 2pac. He shows potential with the stories he tells and the messages he gives out. He also showes that he has talent in rapping with his roughly average rhyming skills and his good flow seen on many tracks.