Picture Credit: Netflix
Netflix is expanding its audio-visual slate this fall with a major hip-hop event. The streamer has officially released the trailer for The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez, a four-part Netflix video podcast event set to premiere globally on November 27.
For nearly three decades, Radio Hall of Famer and New York Times bestselling author Angie Martinez has held onto one of the most sought-after pieces of hip-hop history: previously unreleased portions of her 1996 sit-down with Tupac Shakur, recorded in Los Angeles just months before his tragic murder. Now, for the first time ever, those tapes are being shared in full.
The newly released one-minute teaser sets a tense, reflective tone, blending archival footage from 1996 with modern roundtable discussions.
Recorded at the absolute height of the East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry, the original interview was deemed too explosive to air in its entirety at the time. As Martinez explains in the trailer, “I didn’t want anybody to die because of a conversation that I went to L.A. to go get.”
Throughout the preview, we hear snippets of a fiery, unfiltered Tupac grappling with betrayal, paranoia, and the fallout from his shooting and imprisonment. “Everything you do, you have to suffer and pay the consequences,” Shakur says on the tape, while another clip captures him shouting, “Where’s the f*ing love? Just ’cause they didn’t kill me?!”
In the present-day studio sessions, Martinez plays the reel-to-reel tapes for a rotating panel of hip-hop icons, journalists, and friends of the late rapper. An astonished Joe Budden asks Martinez, “You’ve been sitting on this for 30 years?” while Charlamagne Tha God notes how Tupac was projecting his deep-seated pain onto those around him. The trailer even includes an eerie, goosebump-inducing moment where the studio lights suddenly cut out mid-discussion, prompting E.D.I. Mean to joke, “Damn, Pac, I ain’t mean it like that!”
Why Angie Martinez Kept the Tapes Hidden Until Now
Speaking with Netflix about how the historic sit-down originally came together, Martinez recalled that Tupac initially reached out to ask her to appear in his music video for “I Ain’t Mad at Cha.” Though she declined due to the brewing coastal tensions, their phone conversation led to an invitation to his Los Angeles home—where he had New York pizza waiting for her—so he could clarify that his issues weren’t with the entirety of New York.
However, once the tape was rolling, the conversation went to places Martinez knew couldn’t be broadcast at the time. She recalled returning to New York and sitting in the editing room, “physically cutting the tape with a razor blade, trying to figure out what I could responsibly put on the air.”
Explaining why she held back the full recordings for nearly 30 years, Martinez told Netflix:
For a long time, I didn’t feel comfortable releasing the tapes. There were things said in that conversation that could have hurt people, damaged relationships, and added fuel to an already dangerous situation… After Pac died, it became even more complicated. I felt a responsibility to protect something that was never meant to become his final statement.
But almost 30 years have passed. I also realized these tapes were bigger than me. They’re a piece of hip-hop history, and I don’t think they should just sit in my possession forever. The difference now is that I have the opportunity to share them with context.
As for what viewers will get out of hearing the unedited conversation decades later, Martinez hopes the four-part video podcast format strips away the mythology to reveal the 25-year-old human being underneath the public persona:
I think people will be surprised by how much emotion is underneath everything he’s saying. We tend to remember Tupac as this fearless, confrontational figure, and he absolutely had that side. But when you listen closely, you also hear someone who’s hurt, who’s frustrated, who feels betrayed, and who’s trying to make sense of a lot of things happening around him… I hope this series gives people permission to see him in a more complicated way. Not as a saint, not as a villain, but as a brilliant, flawed, deeply human young man whose life and work still have so much to teach us.
Who is Featured in the Series?
Alongside host Angie Martinez, the four-part series features a stacked lineup of guests who experienced the era firsthand, brought together to unpack Tupac’s mindset, legacy, and the volatile climate of mid-90s hip-hop. Confirmed guests featured in the series include:
- Joe Budden
- Charlamagne Tha God
- RZA
- Lil’ Cease
- Aiyisha T. Obafemi
- Big Boy
- Matt Barnes
- Bootleg Kev
- DJ Hed
- E.D.I. Mean
- Ed Lover
- Monie Love
- Wallo
The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez premieres exclusively on Netflix on November 27, 2026. Will you be tuning in? Let us know in the comments below!
