Helmer Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) will direct a Tupac Shakur documentary that will be supported by the late rapper’s estate.
Shakur Estate trustee Tom Whalley and Amaru Entertainment, the company created by Afeni Shakur to release her son’s posthumous projects, announced Tuesday that Nigel Sinclair’s White Horse Pictures and Jayson Jackson will team to produce a fully authorized documentary.
“I am extremely moved and excited to be exploring the life and times of this legendary artist,” McQueen said in a statement. “I attended NYU film school in 1993 and can remember the unfolding hip-hop world and mine overlapping with Tupac’s through a mutual friend in a small way. Few, if any shined brighter than Tupac Shakur. I look forward to working closely with his family to tell the unvarnished story of this talented man.”
Shakur was the iconic West Coast hip-hop artist, actor, poet and activist, who sold more than 75 million records worldwide. Along with his fame came controversy and violence, including imprisonment and his controversial time at Death Row Records. The rapper, who was killed in Las Vegas at the age of 25, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7.
The life and mysterious death of Shakur is the subject of multiple big-screen projects. Music video director Benny Boom’s biopic All Eyez on Me is set for release this summer via Lionsgate, while Johnny Depp is set to play the Los Angeles police detective who investigated the murders of Shakur and his rival Notorious B.I.G. in Open Roads’ LAbyrinth.
