FX has dropped the new trailer for upcoming Tupac docuseries Dear Mama, coinciding with Mother’s Day in the US.
Exploring the relationship between legendary rapper 2Pac (Tupac Shakur) and his mother Afeni – in particular the lessons that she taught him over the course of his life – the trailer shows images of Tupac and his mother alongside a voiceover from Afeni.
“It was my responsibility to teach Tupac how to survive his reality,” she says.
“So Tupac do something wrong, take your little sorry self in that corner, get the New York Times and let’s have a debate about it. Not a discussion, a debate. Let me hear what your idea is, stand up, defend it.”
Tupac Shakur became one of the most defining rappers of all time over the course of his career in the eighties and nineties.
The series is directed by Allen Hughes, who directed the 2017 documentary The Defiant Ones – which chronicled the partnership between Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. He started work on the documentary in 2019, after being given the blessing of Tupac’s estate.
In it, he aims to tell the pair’s story “through the eyes of the people who knew them best."
“Dear Mama is an intimate wide-angle portrait of the most inspiring and dangerous mother-son duo in American history, whose unified message of freedom, equality, persecution and justice are more relevant today than ever,” the series description reads.
Famed for his conscious rap lyrics and struggle against inequality, Tupac was born in 1971 to parents who were both part of the Black Panther movement.
He was killed in a drive-by shooting at the age of 25, in September 1996. After his death, his mother created the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts in Georgia in his memory.
Afeni Shakur has also been the subject of intense interest in the years since her death in 2016.
An upcoming biopic on her life, called Peace, Love & Respect: the Afeni Shakur/ Panther 21 story has also been announced, which will explore her involvement with the Black Panther Party up until the moment of Tupac’s birth.
She also serves as the inspiration for the name of the five-part docuseries: Dear Mama is named after Tupac’s famous 1995 song, which was released only a year before his death.
Dear Mama will be out on FX this autumn, with a UK broadcaster yet to be announced.
