Chance The Rapper has become the latest voice to praise the critically — and commercially — acclaimed 2Pac docu-series, Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni & Tupac Shakur.
Taking to Twitter on Saturday (May 27), the rapper-turned-Voice coach mused that the record-smashing FX series was, without question, a work of art committed to celluloid.
“Did y’all watch the Tupac & Afeni Shakur documentary series yet?” he wrote. “What’s y’all honest thoughts? Cause I would say without exaggeration or hyperbole it’s probably the best documentary I’ve ever seen.”
Peep the high praise below:
Did y’all watch the Tupac & Afeni Shakur documentary series yet? What’s y’all honest thoughts? Cause I would say without exaggeration or hyperbole it’s probably the best documentary I’ve ever seen.
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) May 27, 2023
Earlier this month, Dear Mamareceived a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“One of the most thorough, sensitive portraits I’ve seen of an artist who has by now been eulogized for longer than he was alive,” wrote TIME. “And of the remarkable woman who created him.”
The five-part docu-series focuses on the mother-son relationship between Afeni Shakur – a revolutionary and member of the Black Panther Party – and 2Pac. The series premiered on April 21, and in turn, was the most-watched premiere episode for an unscripted series in FX’s 28-year history.
“It’s only fitting that Allen Hughes definitive piece on Tupac and Afeni Shakur delivered a record performance for us and it speaks to Tupac’s enduring legacy,” Nick Grad, president of FX Entertainment, said in a statement. “Allen’s examination of Tupac viewed through the prism of his mother Afeni is a fascinating take that really gets beneath the education and experience that shaped his life and inspired him to become one of the greatest artists ever.”
Back in April, 2Pac‘s former manager, Leila Steinberg, praised the docu-series during an interview with SiriusXM’s The Last Mile Radio. According to her, Dear Mama offers comfort to ‘Pac’s fans and loved ones, and gives an honest picture of the prolific rapper’s life.
“Well, I wanted to say something about Dear Mama. Last year, Alan Hughes reached out to me and said he was doing the five-part series on FX that’s coming out…April 21st…. Part of [Allen] wanting to really do this piece was about healing, was about honesty, was about all of us looking at what happened. And, so I’m just saying this to say, he’s done an incredible piece,” she said.
Steinburg also noted that along with his sometimes erratic behavior that the music industry was responsible for ‘Pac’s downfall.
“2Pac was not always right. Matter of fact, he was so passionate and so emotional and so often not emotionally literate, not able to control his emotions. And so he let his anger speak first and then later he would apologize or acknowledge things,” she said.
“I have to sit here as someone who was close to 2Pac until his death, who was present many times when I no longer worked with him in a managerial capacity. I was at lots of video shoots that he did. I was in the studio at Can-Am when he was with Suge [Knight]. And this industry is so destructive, that if I point the finger, I would say that executives and this industry had more to do with his collapse than anything.”
