Set to premiere this Friday, April 21st on FX, “Dear Mama,” is a highly anticipated five-part docuseries about Tupac Shakur and his mother Afeni Shakur. While there have been countless documentaries made about the rap superstar and black activist, “Dear Mama” — named after the tribute track Tupac wrote to his mom — promises to bring a fresh point of view to Tupac’s life and work, while also documenting the complicated relationship between Afeni Shakur and her son.
By this point in time, Tupac’s story is canonical in the world of Hip Hop. The celebrated California rapper was shot and killed in Las Vegas in 1996 at the age of 25. His murder is believed to be motivated by the East-vs-West-Coast rap feud of the mid-90s, although speculation about who killed him, and why, remains rampant to this day.
Afeni Shakur’s story may not be as well known, but it is no less interesting. A political activist and member of the Black Panthers, Afeni was arrested in 1969 alongside twenty other Black Panthers and accused of conspiring to bomb several New York City landmarks. As part of the so-called “Panther 21,” Afeni successfully defended herself against the charges and was acquitted in 1971.
But still, Afeni Shakur spent two years in prison and became pregnant with Tupac during this time.
This unique exploration of the Shakur legacy is sure to draw a lot of attention across the United States.
In anticipation of the premiere episode, BetGeorgia.com is taking a break from covering the latest news on Georgia sports betting legalization to figure out which U.S. state is most excited for “Dear Mama.”
To figure it out, we used Google Trends to rank the states with the highest number of Google Searches for “Tupac Shakur” in the last 30 days.
Here are the results:
Surprisingly, California, the state most associated with Tupac, is ranked all the way down at 13, tied with North Carolina. Meanwhile, the state that’s googling Tupac the most, Nevada, also happens to be the state in which he was murdered.
Although slightly macabre, this certainly speaks to the ongoing fascination with Tupac’s death, even 26 years later. By expanding the aperture to include his mother’s side of the story, “Dear Mama” will surely only continue to build upon the iconic rapper’s complicated legacy — something the project’s director Allen Hughes is intimately familiar with.
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Tupac, and his entourage once jumped the directing duo known as the Hughes Brothers after they fired him from 1993’s “Menace II Society” for causing problems on set. Tupac would later brag about the attack on MTV, leading to him serving fifteen days in prison.
The incident is addressed directly in the new docs series. It is just one of many legal troubles Tupac faced. He was involved in a 1993 shoot-out with two off-duty cops, and in 1995 spent nine months in jail after he was convicted of sexual assault.
Yet the rapper is warmly remembered for his music and lyrics advocating for racial equality and social justice — a commitment to political activism passed down by his mother, Afeni Shakur.
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Author
Jeff Parker is an entertainment writer for BetGeorgia.com. A writer for film, television and the internet, Jeff is a life long movie buff, with a Masters Degree in Popular Culture. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he works full time as documentary filmmaker and producer.
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