Angie Martinez Is Finally Releasing Her Lost Tupac Interview — Netflix’s “The Tupac Tapes” Drops November 27
Thirty years. That’s how long Angie Martinez sat on one of the most important interviews in hip-hop history.
Netflix announced THE TUPAC TAPES WITH ANGIE MARTINEZ on Wednesday (November 11) — a four-episode video podcast event premiering November 27, built around the conversation Angie recorded with Tupac Shakur in 1996, just three months before he was killed, at the height of the East Coast vs. West Coast war.
Here’s the part that still doesn’t sound real: the conversation ran roughly two hours. Only about 12 minutes of it ever made it to the radio.
Angie made that call herself. She has said for years that Pac came into that interview angry, hurt and ready to name names — and that she cut the tape down, physically editing it with a razor blade, because she believed airing all of it could pour gasoline on a situation that was already getting people killed. In the trailer, you hear Pac say it plain: “They crossed me.” Then you hear Angie explain why she held the tapes back: she didn’t want anybody to die because of a conversation.
The tapes lived in boxes at her house for years before she had them digitized and locked away in a vault — a move she credits Jay-Z with pushing her to make, before a fire or a flood could erase them forever. Today, Angie calls the recordings exactly what they are: a piece of hip-hop history.
And she’s not telling the story alone. Joining her across the four episodes to reflect on Pac’s life, legacy and lasting impact: Matt Barnes, Big Boy, Bootleg Kev, Joe Budden, Charlamagne Tha God, DJ Hed, E.D.I. Mean of the Outlawz, Erica Ford, Dream Hampton, Lil’ Cease, Monie Love, Ed Lover, Aiyisha T. Obafemi, Wallo and RZA.
That guest list alone tells you the weight of this. E.D.I. Mean ran with Pac. Lil’ Cease ran with Biggie. Putting those perspectives around a tape from the most dangerous summer in rap history is not just a podcast — it’s a history lesson with witnesses.
For three decades, fans begged Angie to release the full interview. She always said no. On November 27, the vault opens.
So here’s the question we can’t stop thinking about: if 12 minutes was all the world could hear in 1996 — what do you think Pac said in the rest of that conversation that never aired?
Source: Netflix’s official announcement of THE TUPAC TAPES WITH ANGIE MARTINEZ (November 11, 2026); Angie Martinez’s past accounts of the 1996 interview and the 12 minutes that aired.
