Angie Martinez’ vaulted 1996 interview with Tupac Shakur to become four-part Netflix series

“The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez” arrives on November 27 as Martinez finally sheds light on one of the rapper’s most notorious and speculated-upon interviews.

Angie Martinez‘ much-fabled 1996 interview with Tupac Shakur is finally seeing the light of day.

After years of swearing she would never release the interview for fear that the information would “hurt people” and “damage relationships,” the legendary radio host and New York Times bestseller is releasing “The Tupac Tapes With Angie Martinez” on Netflix on November 27.

In conversation with Tudum, Martinez revealed why now was the ideal time to release the interviews, 30 years after Shakur was murdered in Las Vegas and weeks after one of the men involved, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for it.

“For a long time, I didn’t feel comfortable releasing the tapes,” she said. “I did air portions of the interview that I felt represented Pac’s message, particularly his desire to clarify that he wasn’t at war with an entire coast. But I chose not to release the more inflammatory parts. After Pac died, it became even more complicated. I felt a responsibility to protect something that was never meant to become his final statement.”

When asked about the tapes that contained her mythical interview, she added, “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.”

In 1996, at the height of Shakur’s beef with Bad Boy Records and The Notorious B.I.G., Martinez flew from New York to Los Angeles to meet with Shakur for an interview. The at-times contentious conversation had been released only in small portions on her radio show at New York’s Hot 97 until now. 

In her memoir, Martinez swore she would never release the interview, believing Shakur made incendiary remarks. Now she believes she can release the interview in full, with proper context so that fans can examine the full scope of Shakur’s words and his state of mind.

“I’ve done more for credibility in hip-hop than any f-cking artist,” Shakur says at one point during the interview. When asked about people who showed him love prior to him being shot, Shakur questioned Martinez, “Where’s the f-cking love? Just because they didn’t kill me? What love?”

Released as a four-part series, “The Tupac Tapes With Angie Martinez” features several personalities who were present during the rapper’s much-publicized beef with The Notorious B.I.G., including Ed Lover, Lil’ Cease, dream hampton and Big Boy alongside current culture commentators such as Joe Budden and Charlamagne Tha God.

What Martinez hopes fans come away with from listening to her interview with Shakur is both sides of the spectrum: hers as a burgeoning New York radio personality who scored the interview of a lifetime and her subject, arguably the most influential rapper of all time, at a crossroads with his enemies, both perceived and real.

“I hope this series gives people permission to see him in a more complicated way,” Martinez said. “Not as a saint, not as a villain, but as a brilliant, flawed, deeply human young man whose life and work still have so much to teach us.”