2Pac‘s former manager, Leila Steinberg, has praised the rapper’s upcoming docuseries, Dear Mama, which is scheduled to be released later this month.
During a recent interview with SiriusXM’s The Last Mile Radio, Steinburg discussed the upcoming FX documentary series. According to her, Dear Mama offers comfort to ‘Pac’s fans and loved ones, and gives an honest picture of the prolific rapper’s life.
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“Well, I wanted to say something about Dear Mama. Last year, [director] Alan Hughes reached out to me and said he was doing the five-part series on FX that’s coming out…April 21st…. Part of [Alan] wanting to really do this piece was about healing, was about honesty, was about all of us looking at what happened. And, so I’m just saying this to say, he’s done an incredible piece,” she said.
Steinburg also noted that along with his sometimes erratic behavior that the music industry was responsible for ‘Pac’s downfall.
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“Tupac was not always right. Matter of fact, he was so passionate and so emotional and so often not emotionally literate, not able to control his emotions. And so he let his anger speak first and then later he would apologize or acknowledge things,” she said.
Steinburg continued: “I have to sit here as someone who was close to Tupac until his death, who was present many times when I no longer worked with him in a managerial capacity. I was at lots of video shoots that he did. I was in the studio at Can-Am when he was with Suge [Knight]. And this industry is so destructive, that if I point the finger, I would say that executives and this industry had more to do with his collapse than anything.”
2Pac was fatally shot on September 7, 1996 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was only 25 years old. He is considered one of the most influential rappers of all time, and has sold more than 75 million records worldwide.
Last week, FX dropped the full-length trailer for Dear Mama ahead of its forthcoming debut, revealing the deep bond between the late rapper and his late mother, Afeni Shakur.
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In the two-minute clip, a 17-year-old ‘Pac discusses life growing up with his mother and the effects of her activism while being a Black Panther had on their relationship. “My mother taught me to analyze society and not be quiet,” the young rapper says in the clip. “If there’s something on my mind, speak it. Because – I gotta reiterate it – my mother was a Black Panther and she was very involved in the movement.”
Dear Mama is set to premiere on April 21, with the first two of five episodes released concurrently. The remaining three parts will then be delivered weekly on the following three Fridays. The show will also stream on Hulu one day after its network broadcast.
Earlier this year, executive producer Allen Hughes — who directed the Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine docuseries The Defiant Ones — shared details about the project during a presentation at the Television Critics Awards winter press tour.
During his chat with the media, Hughes explained that he and his team prioritized finding and using previously unreleased audio and video content of Afeni Shakur and her son.
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“Wherever possible, we tried to find archival footage that hadn’t been seen so there’s a lot that we have in the five parts,” he explained. “There’s also audio that’s never been heard. And not just some of his acapellas and vocals, there is a lot of stuff of 2Pac from his baby years that had never been seen.”
