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Angie Martinez will release her 1996 interview with Tupac Shakur in full for the first time, 30 years after it was recorded.
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“The Tupac Tapes With Angie Martinez” is a four-part video podcast event premiering on Netflix on November 27.
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Only 12 minutes of the roughly two-hour conversation aired in 1996, as Martinez feared the rest could inflame the East Coast-West Coast feud.
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Charlamagne Tha God, Joe Budden, Big Boy, Dream Hampton, RZA and Wallo join her to reflect on Tupac’s legacy.
November 12, (THEWILL) – Thirty years after it was recorded, one of hip-hop’s most talked-about lost recordings will be heard in full!
Veteran radio host Angie Martinez has announced “The Tupac Tapes With Angie Martinez,” a four-part video podcast event that will release on Netflix on November 27 and air her 1996 sit-down with Tupac Shakur.
For fans, it is the end of a very long wait. For context, this interview is the same age as the youngest millennial.
Martinez was a rising voice at New York’s Hot 97 when Tupac reached out. He wanted her in the video for “I Ain’t Mad at Cha,” but she declined because of the hostility between him and the East Coast scene. Tupac insisted his problem was not with all of New York and invited her to his Los Angeles home to say so on the record, Baller Alertreports.
He was said to have New York pizza waiting when she arrived.
The conversation went on for about two hours, with anger, humour, and sharp words about other people in the industry. Only 12 minutes ever made it to air because she feared that the full interview could escalate the deadly feud.
Tupac was shot in Las Vegas about three months later and died six days after that.
By Martinez’s past accounts, the tapes sat in boxes in her laundry room for years, until Jay-Z warned her that a flood or fire could wipe them out. She had them digitised and locked the originals in a vault.
Now, she believes the time is right. She told Netflix the recordings are “a piece of hip-hop history” and should not stay in her possession forever.
She will not be alone this time. Charlamagne Tha God, Joe Budden, Big Boy, Dream Hampton, RZA, and Wallo join her to unpack the interview, the media climate around the feud, and Tupac’s legacy three decades on.
Martinez also revisits her own role as the person who decided what listeners would hear, including cutting the original recording by hand with a razor blade.
Do people still care about the tape? Will it change how Tupac is remembered? Will it alter reality?
November 27 is the date.
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Why Now?
Martinez says time and context finally changed her mind. She explained to Netflix Tudum, cited by Revolt, that parts of the conversation could have hurt people and added fuel to an already dangerous situation, which is why she held back the more inflammatory material.
Again, the timing. It is hard to ignore.
Tupac joined Death Row Records after surviving a 1994 shooting at a Manhattan recording studio. His conflict with The Notorious B.I.G. and Bad Boy Records became one of rap’s most closely watched rivalries, and the diss track “Hit ’Em Up” only raised the temperature. Tupac was shot on September 7, 1996, and died at age 25. Biggie was killed in March 1997.
The case reached a verdict recently. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, whom TheGrio described as one of the men involved, was convicted of Tupac’s murder and, according to iHeart, was sentenced on October 13 to 40 years to life in prison.
The announcement came weeks after Davis’s sentencing.
Explaining her change of heart, Martinez said:
“But almost 30 years have passed. I also realised these tapes were bigger than me. They’re a piece of hip-hop history, and I don’t think they should just sit in my possession forever. The difference now is that I have the opportunity to share them with context. Not just play the most explosive moments and let people react, but really examine what was happening, why it was happening, and what we can understand differently today.”
She also hopes the series changes how listeners see the rapper, saying she wants it to give people “permission to see him in a more complicated way.
To what end? Many wonder.
Gertrude Oby is a writer and journalist passionate about the creative industries. Works span fashion, film, media, art, and culture.
