Angie Martinez is finally releasing the bulk of the nearly two-hour interview she conducted with Tupac Shakur in 1996, three months before he was killed. The conversation, recorded at Shakur’s Los Angeles home, will be presented in The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez, a four-part video podcast that premieres globally on Netflix on November 27.
Only about 12 minutes of the sit-down ever aired on Hot 97 at the time. Martinez, then a rising New York radio personality, returned from Los Angeles and cut the tape herself with a razor blade, deciding what she felt she could responsibly put on the air. The full recording captured Shakur moving quickly between sharp, funny, wounded, and angry. In one clip already circulating from the trailer, he says, “I’ve done more for credibility in hip-hop than any fucking artist. Where’s the fucking love? Just because they didn’t kill me? What love?”
Martinez has said she kept the rest private because certain portions could have hurt people, damaged relationships, and added fuel to the East Coast–West Coast feud that was already turning violent. Some of the people Shakur spoke about are no longer alive. She did not want the interview to become an unintended final statement from a 24-year-old still in the middle of an active conflict. She has also denied longstanding rumors that Sean “Diddy” Combs paid her to suppress the tapes.
For years the physical reels sat in boxes in her laundry room. During a meeting at Roc Nation, Jay-Z learned where they were and told the people in the room to get them out immediately so a flood or fire could not destroy them. The tapes were later digitized and moved to a secure vault.
Martinez told Netflix’s Tudum that the recordings are a piece of hip-hop history that should not remain in her possession forever. “The difference now is that I have the opportunity to share them with context,” she said. “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.”
The series breaks the original conversation across four episodes and places it alongside reflections from a rotating group of guests that includes Charlamagne Tha God, Joe Budden, Big Boy, Dream Hampton, RZA, Wallo, Lil’ Cease, Ed Lover, Monie Love, Matt Barnes, and others. In the trailer, Joe Budden is heard asking Martinez whether she has really been sitting on the material for 30 years.
The release also follows Duane “Keffe D” Davis’s sentencing to 40 years to life for his role in orchestrating Shakur’s 1996 murder. Martinez was on the Hot 97 airwaves the day the news broke and has described having to deliver it to listeners as one of the most emotional moments of her career. She has said she hopes the series leaves audiences with a clearer sense of the human cost behind the headlines and the rivalries.
The interview itself began after Shakur reached out about Martinez appearing in his “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” video. She declined because of the climate at the time. When they spoke again, he told her his issues were not with all of New York and invited her to Los Angeles. He had New York pizza waiting so she would feel more comfortable. Nearly three decades later, the rest of what was said in that living room is set to be heard.
