Amaru/Deathrow/Interscope

Here we got some more classic 2Pac. It's everything that you would expect from 2Pac. It's really hard to believe that this man created all these songs before he passed away. He's one of the only rappers that wrote about shit years ago, but shit is still current. His lyrics don't get outdated, and what makes them timeless is because he rapped about shit that's real. Reality shit, shit that's gonna always be there. Muthafuckas always is gonna be stressin', muthafuckas gonna always have enemies and muthafuckas is always gonna be livin' that ghetto life. So the shit is super real. Muthafuckas could listen to 2Pac in 200 years and they'd still feel him. It's a double albm and all songs are tight. 99% of it is new material, and then a coupe of tracks are re-mixes. It's dope. 2Pac always had a different ear as far as the production, and this stays consistent with that sound. He didn't come with the straight Bay flavor or the West Coast flavor. His sound is hard to categorize. And he ! didn't just make raps, he made songs. Some rappers just rap over a beat and it might be right. But 2Pac would take the beat, the rap and the hook and turn it into a complete song. The man had a vision when he did his shit. -Flaggs

2Pac - Vibe.com Review
Until The End Of Time
Amaru/Death Row/Interscope
By aqua boogie

Although many songs recorded by the late Tupac Shakur before his untimely death were released on bootleg, Until the End of Time , the first of two double-CD collections, makes several of these commercially unreleased tracks available to his fans. Unlike The Notorious B.I.G.'s posthumous release, Born Again (1999), comprised of a string of pieced-together verses and remixes, Until the End of Time , recorded during his Makaveli period, delivers surprisingly well-rounded and complete songs.

With Suge Knight and Afeni Shakur serving as executive producers, Until the End of Time features guest appearances by K-Ci & JoJo, Left Eye, Lil' Mo, and The Outlawz and production from Johnny J., QDIII, and Trackmasters. Pac's spews relentless lyrics about the ways of the world on the title track over Mr. Mister's classic "Broken Wings," and pens a heartfelt letter to his unborn seeds while flipping a sample of Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl" on "Letter to My Unborn." On a less serious note, the remix of "Thug N U Thug N Me" with K-Ci & Jo Jo and "Niggaz Nature" featuring Lil' Mo are uptempo, swaggering sexual odes in the same vein as "How Do You Want It."

Never one to avoid controversy, Pac unleashes his fury on rival rappers. He takes yet another jab at Mobb Deep on "Runnin' on E," ordering a hit on Havoc and Prodigy, and verbally assaults Jay-Z on "All Out" featuring the Outlawz when he screams, "You got a lot of nerve to play me / Another gay rapper, busting caps at Jay Z." In the same verse he talks about chillin' in Jamaica, which is sure to trigger further speculation about his demise.

One can't help but wonder if Until the End of Time would have seen the light of day if Tupac hadn't been murdered. It's also fair to speculate whether Pac would have remixed several tracks on this project, or if he would have collaborated with some of the artists featured on the album. The finality of his death makes such ideas only a passing thought. Nevertheless, Tupac Shakur remains a sorely missed ghetto griot whose words continue to touch people long after his death.

USA Today Review
2Pac, Until the End of Time (31/2 Stars)

This double album-the first of two to be released this year- is the sixth released since Tupac Shakur was killed in 
1996. It also means he has had more releases posthumously than he had while alive. Both of this year’s were recorded at Death Row Records during Shakur's last year, and remarkably, the music still resonates (and sells millions). It reminds you of what always separated him from most of his gangsta-rap brethren. Though he talked about all the familiar themes connected with running the streets, the intense rapper was never clichéd or cartoony and always infused his songs with heavy doses of reality and his own humanity. That soul baring gave them a ring of truth that’s evident here on hedonistic jams such as Let Em Have It and Thug N U Thug N Me, confrontational numbers (Lastonesleft and All Out) or socially conscious anthems (Everything They Owe and Letter 2 My Unborn). The inspirational title cut, featuring R&B crooner RL and a sample from Mr. Mister’s Broken Wings, is sure to return this still vibrant voice to the airwaves. 

SoundScan Review

Until the End of Time is the third album of posthumous material by Tupac Shakur to be released. While the first, R U Still Down?, focused on his work while on the Interscope label, and the second, Still I Rise, featured his work with protégé group the Outlawz, this two-CD set, the first of two planned, compiles tracks he recorded while on Death Row Records, which his mother, Afeni Shakur, dubs his "Makaveli period."  However, Until the End of Time's 28 songs (plus a "shout out" from Big Syke) aren't raw demos; instead, they've been remixed for potential radio airplay. Some, such as "N***** Nature," with Lil' Mo and "Thug N U Thug N Me," with K-Ci and JoJo, are clearly marked as remixes. But for the most part, Amaru, the record label set up by Afeni to handle Tupac Shakur's music, doesn't say how much extra music has been added to these recordings. Multitracked to death, Until the End of Time lacks the intensity that made the original Makaveli's Don Killuminati: The Seven Day Theory so brash and exciting. Several, like "When Thugz Cry," prominently feature female R&B choruses incongruous with Tupac Shakur's vocals. Overproduction also mars the album's few gems, such as "Lastonesleft" and "Good Life," leaving the expected disses of then-rivals Jay-Z (on "Lil' Homies") and Prodigy of Mobb Deep (on "Why U Turn on Me"). 

Would Tupac Shakur have approved of all this? It's impossible to say; though as commercial-minded as anyone else, he seemed to possess a slightly skewed sense of integrity that fueled the confessionals, strip club anthems, and angry threats for which he is now remembered. That perspective is in little supply here. Unlike nemesis The Notorious B.I.G., who polished a single song to perfection, Tupac Shakur recorded dozens of tracks before compiling the best ones of the lot. By focusing on his work with the Outlawz, Still I Rise replicated this ethos with some success. But Until the End of Time only seeks to capture Tupac Shakur's voice, casually overlooking his artistic spirit. — Mosi Reeves

RollingStone.com Review
2Pac Until The End Of Time (Death Row/Interscope)

Tupac Shakur may be gone, but he isn't forgotten -- and won't be if his mother Afeni Shakur and Death Row have anything to say in the matter. And they do, since this double CD -- the latest installment of the posthumous 2Pac story -- is the first of two double albums culled from his final recordings sessions for 1996's Makaveli. Heavy on outside contributions and certainly missing 2Pac's editorial control and final production decisions, Until the End of Time bops and weaves from peak to valley in schizophrenic fashion. Ballad of a Dead Soulja kicks things off with sparse, pumped bass and a tough, firm beat, but the lean aggression that was 2Pac's legacy is frequently sweetened with superfluous choruses ("This Ain't Livin'") and over-busy arrangements. Within the twenty-nine tracks, however, there are pieces ("Lil Homies," "Lastonesleft" featuring Outlawz) where sublime melodicism manages to successfully polish these rough drafts. (ROB O'CONNOR)

Is Tupac's new CD a true representation of his legacy or is it just a ripoff of it?

By Neil Drumming
Special to BET.com

Tupac Shakur
Until the End of Time
Interscope Records

Even the wonder that comes with hearing a voice from beyond the graveeventually passes. At this point, annual 2Pac releases, including books, poetry and even theatre, are so common that they're practically unremarkable. Thanks in part to a mother's determination to have her son seen as a hero rather than a studio gangster, most new 2Pac material is presented as iconic. But fans can only pay so much tribute before they morph back into listeners and start viewing the dead in the context of those alive and well. “Until the End of Time” is a posthumously released double CD of Shakurian nostalgia that only really made sense in 1996.

Tupac Shakur spent most of his life positioning himself somewhere between a cold criminal and a revolutionary. By his Makaveli period, the time during which these songs were recorded, he had become so comfortable with the glaring contradictions between the two as to seem callous. “Until the End of Time” showcases so much purposeless violence and misdirected anger, that, barring the inherent answers, Pac's prayers don't deserve to be heard: “Come take my body, God/Don't let me suffer any longer. Where is the end to all our misery? Is there a close?/I guess that's why I murder my foes.” Deliberately-sentimental missives like “Letter 2 My Unborn” and “Happy Home” are evenly distributed throughout the two discs, but amidst the overwhelming din of f------g gold-digging b-------s and busting shots at the East Coast (from “Let Em Have It:” “F--k Jay-Z”), what little variety exists gets lost.

Pac is further drowned out by the sound of today's rappers, who echo his thug-speak over contemporary electronic beats while Pac is doomed to repeat himself to the gangster-funk R&B that was dance floor fodder over three years ago. Mom might want to suggest some big name remixers for the next comp. But even new sounds will not change the fact that, no matter how much hidden 2Pac material is out there waiting to be released, there will be no new information contained within, no new sides to the man revealed. On “Ballad of a Dead Soldier,” Pac rhymes, “my only fear of death is reincarnation.” Perhaps he knew that even a dead man could wear out his welcome.

BET.com has posted a harsh review of UTEOT. Obviously Neil Drumming is not a fan of Pac's music and has something against him as a person. If you're as pissed off at this review as we are, email BET at the following addresses:

webmaster@bet.com
content@bet.com
contactus@bet.com

Tupac Shakur sold himself on his best living albums with a larger-than-life persona that belied his two-dimensional subject matter. Now, his mom -- Afreni Shakur -- is making good on that by selling every thanks-for-the-memories moment she lays hands on. Not that hip-hop hasn't proven time and time again that mere trivialities such as mortality are irrelevant in the long (Billboard} run, but five years after the rapper's murder, the hip-hop house ol' Tupac built is now his mom's multimedia industry -- six records in half a decade, a book of poetry, plays, a future bio-pic. Al Hendrix should be taking pointers.

Until the End of Time makes headway towards its title by ingeniously double dipping into an already mined past; twenty-nine tracks are culled from the first half of the remaining material (another double disc to follow in the fall) from the manic Makaveli sessions shortly before his death in 1996 -- when the man, the myth, and now legend spent weeks sequestered in the studio with a premonition of his own death. These are the second-to-last gasps and breaths, captured in all of his fascinating contradiction -- the surreal fatalism of "My Closest Roaddoggz," the little-too-late kingly boasts of "Lastonesleft," the bizarre shot at Jay-Z ("All Out") that made all of zero sense in '96, but comes across as strangely prophetic (and timely) now.

After an hour and a half of poorly-pieced-together, bottom-of-the-world braggadocio, though, one wonders if Shakur ever really wanted an album this way: the songs -- padded down by loops of his raps, guest appearances, the thuggish chants of his Outlawz brethren; the album -- fattened by dubious Trackmaster remixes, including an abysmal title track job that samples Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings."

What saves what sounds from beginning to end like an extremely quick buck -- via material on a music equivalency level of farts and burps -- is Shakur's provocative presence, so urgent in both decadence ("Good Life") and desperation ("This Ain't Livin'") that he still seems here, at least in the spirit of his lyrics. Waxing over a melange of rolling basses and spidery keyboards -- quite ironically reminiscent of his pre-Death Row days -- he never knew where fate left him in the gray area of sin and salvation, a quandary he leaves on "Letter 2 My Unborn" to his future flock: "In case I pass away, will my child get to feel loved / or are we all just cursed to be street thugs." Life after death, indeed.

Brad Cawn
CDNOW Contributing Writer