When filmmaker Allen Hughes was first approached with the opportunity to make a documentary about Tupac’s legacy, he wasn’t sure he was the right guy to tackle it.
“It was tough, because me and Tupac have a complex history, to say the least,” Hughes said in a conversation with Variety at the Los Angeles debut of the FX docuseries “Dear Mama.” The series juxtaposes Tupac’s rise to become one of hip-hop’s most influential artists with his mother Afeni Shakur’s activism as a leader of the Black Panther Party in the 1970s.
Hughes – an Emmy and Peabody award nominee whose filmography includes “Menace II Society,” “Dead Presidents” and “The Book of Eli” — is, of course, referencing the beginnings of his career, when he and his brother Albert were recruited by Interscope to direct the music video for Tupac’s breakout song “Trapped” in 1991. The directing duo, known as the Hughes Brothers, went on to direct two more music videos for Tupac’s debut album “2Pacalypse Now,” but the relationship fractured after an on-set altercation in 1993. Just three years later, Tupac was murdered in a drive-by shooting. He was 25 years old.
“It was an intense friendship,” Hughes told the crowd assembled at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles to watch the series’ premiere episode. He continued, joking that filming his last documentary, the 2017 Grammy and NAACP Image Award-winning series “The Defiant Ones,” nearly “sent him to the loony bin,” so he wasn’t sure if he wanted to dive into something this personal. Making a documentary takes a long time, but it’s also very intimate business.
“When you sit with Snoop Dogg and you’re exploring stuff that happened 25 years ago with a man who’s now 50, who’s had the opportunity to progress as a man and mature as a man, talking about his friend who didn’t make it past 25. … That’s a surreal experience to watch,” Hughes said. “You’ll see as the series goes on, men talking about what boys did and the actions of boys who weren’t yet men, and that’s emotional.”
So why did he say yes? Hughes recognized the opportunity to get to some clarity about his former friend, someone he’d first bonded with over being raised by strong, single mothers.
“When I was asked to consider doing this, I said, ‘There’s a lot I don’t understand about Tupac.’ I think he’s one of the most misunderstood figures of the 20th century,” Hughes recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll probably learn a lot more if I discover Afeni and her narrative.’”
The “Dear Mama” docuseries is titled in reference to Tupac’s 1995 song, an autobiographical track which paid tribute to his mother Afeni. In the song, the rapper details the highs and lows of his relationship with his mother — from their incidents of extreme poverty and her addiction to crack cocaine, to his admiration for her strength as an activist and her dedication as a mother to keeping the family together. Produced by Tony Pizarro, “Dear Mama” was featured on Tupac’s third studio album “Me Against the World” and became his first top 10 hit on the Billboard hot 100. The song has since gone triple platinum and become one of Tupac’s most celebrated tracks, selected for preservation at the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress in 2010, just the third hip-hop song to do so.
And the song was the perfect starting point for the five-part docuseries Hughes directed, executive produced and co-wrote with editor Lassë Jarvi.
“Dear Mama” includes archive footage of Tupac and Afeni discussing their lives, as well as interviews with close family and friends — including Glo Cox (Afeni’s sister and Tupac’s aunt), Mutulu (Tupac’s stepfather) and fellow Black Panther Party leader Jamal Joseph (who executive produced the project and sat for the post-screening Q&A with Hughes) – plus Tupac’s musical contemporaries like Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Digital Underground’s Money-B and Chopmaster J.
In Variety’s review of the series, critic Joshua Alston says that combining Tupac and Afeni Shakur’s lives into a single series not only captures the nuances of their relationship but also “miniaturizes a huge swath of Black life without diluting it.” Alston writes, “‘Dear Mama’ is similar to looking at a Shakur family photo album through a microscope and a kaleidoscope at the same time.”
During the Q&A, Hughes described the film as a “conversation,” a term which carries a few meanings. It’s a conversation between Hughes and Tupac, as well as between Tupac and Afeni as mother and son. Plus, Joseph noted, the series also serves as a “Trojan horse” narrative into the sociopolitical ideals that the Shakurs fought to uphold.
“Through Afeni and Tupac, we revisit and rediscover the times in broader context,” Joseph said, turning his attention to Hughes. “I remember this brilliant thing you said, ‘This is like a Trojan horse. We’ll get into to people’s living rooms and their devices because it’s Tupac and Afeni. But then, when we open it up, people have to look at themselves and their America.”
For example, many viewers might not know about Afeni’s contributions to the first version of the Patients’ Bill of Rights. They might not know how, just a month before Tupac was born, Afeni passionately defended herself and her fellow activists in the landmark “Panther 21” court case, sealing her acquittal of more than 150 charges of conspiracy. As a member of the Black Panther Party (and one of the Panther 21), Joseph was closely connected with Afeni and, later, her son, so sitting with Hughes to reflect on their lives, and their deaths, was an emotional experience.
“Alan found footage that I didn’t know existed. Those moments with Afeni, moments with me in the Panther office and reliving it — every time I see it, it moves me,” Joseph said.
He expects audiences to be moved as well, explaining that the way Hughes crafted the story, “Everybody gets to feel like they’ve spent time a little bit with us as Panthers, a little bit with Afeni and Tupac.” He added: “There was a poetry to how they lived, how they spoke, what they did. And like a favorite song and a favorite record, when you relive that, it brings up what it felt like in the past. I think why they’re so still relevant is that we feel that connection and we feel that that rage, that anxiety, that strength, but also that hope for the future?”
While making the film, Hughes became increasingly aware of the project’s larger themes.
“This fight for human rights and social justice is an eternal fight. You don’t get to this victory. You have to maintain whatever little victories you got. It’s eternal, this struggle,” the filmmaker said, noting that Roe vs. Wade was overturned while the project was in production. “We’ve gotta keep fighting.”
Hughes’ thought called to mind a conversation Joseph had with fellow executive producer, hip-hop historian and journalist Nelson George.
“When you reflect on Malcolm X — who was, as Ossie Davis said, ‘Our shining prince, our shining king’ — remember what Malcolm was at that age?” Joseph began, calling out the civil rights leader’s recollections of his late teens and early 20s from “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” At that time, Joseph noted, “Malcolm was a drug addict. He was a dealer; he was a thug. And who he became. And his life cut short at 38.”
That’s part of what makes Hughes’ exploration of Tupac’s legacy so profound, Joseph explained, recounting what would turn out to be some of his last conversations with the rapper.
“When Pac died, when you would talk to him, he wasn’t talking about the next platinum record,” Joseph recalled. “He wasn’t talking about the next big movie role. He was talking about youth programs across the country. He was talking about businesses, like the Power of Mecca Cafe. He was talking about Black-owned studios and radio stations to tell our story that way. He was talking about changing the political landscape.”
Concluding his point, Joseph posed the all-important question: “Can you imagine — and we can say these words as we think about people like Malcolm, like Dr. King — can you imagine what the world would be like if those evolving brothers had lived? Can you imagine what the world would be like if Tupac Shakur had lived?”
The first two episodes of “Dear Mama” are available on FX and Hulu. Episode 3 debuts Friday.
Watch the video above for the full conversation.
