Tupac Musical Coming to Broadway

25 Jun, 2013

The songs of Tupac Shakur will be used as material for a new Broadway musical, scheduled to debut in the 2013-2014 season. Holler If Ya Hear Me will be co-produced by the late rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur.

“Tupac was a prophet and I want everyone to see that,” director Kenny Leon told Broadway.com. Although Shakur “is not a character” in the production, his music will be used to tell a “present-day” story, written by Todd Kreidler.

Holler If Ya Hear Me reportedly centres on the story of two childhood friends, “struggling to reconcile the challenges and realities of their daily lives with their hopes, dreams and ambitions”. It is not set in any of the places most closely associated with Shakur – New York, his birthplace; California, his longtime home; or Las Vegas, where he was murdered in 1996.

Instead, Leon and Kreidler are telling the contemporary tale “of a Midwestern industrial city” such as Detroit or Cleveland.

Last week, the Hollywood Walk of Fame announced that Shakur, just 25 when he died, would receive a posthumous star on the landmark LA street, honoring his career. The rapper’s albums have sold more than 75m copies.

Guardian

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