The opening lyrics of Tupac’s “Ain’t Hard 2 Find” go, “I heard a rumor I died, murdered in cold blood dramatized / Pictures of me in my final stages, you know mama cried / But that was fiction, some coward got the story twisted.” Tupac fans have long used that line as argument that the rapper predicted his own death, but now it looks like he may have also been warning producers to be careful with their new Tupac projects.
A biopic of Tupac Shakur has been in the works for years, and now there’s a musical inspired by the rapper’s lyrics that's booked a spot on Broadway beginning in June. Variety reports that the musical Holler If Ya Hear Me hails from Todd Kreidler, best known as a researcher for the late playwright August Wilson. Kenny Leon—who directed the Sean Combs TV movie version of A Raisin In The Sun, as well as an upcoming revival with Denzel Washington—will direct.
Rather than being a straight retelling of Tupac's life, Holler follows “a non-biographical story about inner city lives” as it incorporates his music—so there won’t be a Tupac hologram, or a scene where he auditions for Star Wars. Anything like that will be left to the biopic due to film this spring, while the Broadway theater community will at least get to experience a revival of Tupac's music a little bit sooner. Hopefully neither project gets its story twisted.