Notorious B.I.G.

If it never existed, no one would be banging down Bad Boy’s doors, begging Diddy to release it, but it’s out there and nearly all your favourite rappers on it. This is an album 17 tracks deep, each one a posse cut owing its existence to the life that left Big Poppa. Never — at the peak of their careers, their egos swollen with conceit — would rap’s best MCs come together like this. Nas, Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne and many more contribute. Surprise! So does 2Pac (on "Living in Pain”), and those two would probably hate on each other in hip-hop heaven. Bob Marley and Big Pun also drop in. No one could have foreseen Korn and Christopher Wallace hooking up for the obvious catastrophe "Wake Up,” and they should’ve let that one die slow. "Whatcu’ Want” is much better, reuniting Brooklyn's finest (Biggie and Jay-Z). As abrasive as sandpaper, B.I.G. unleashes a barrage of lyrical tongue-lashings, while Hov bludgeons the last verse. In death, Biggie abandoned his fight to be the best rapper alive. Here, his posthumous collaborators acknowledge his claim to it.