The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez: Netflix Premiere Nov. 27

Courtesy of Netflix

For almost 30 years, Angie Martinez kept most of her 1996 Tupac Shakur interview to herself. Now the full conversation is coming out. Netflix announced The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez on Nov. 11, a four-part video podcast that premieres Nov. 27, and released the official trailer the same day.

The featured image is official Netflix key art showing Martinez and Shakur during their 1996 sit-down at his Los Angeles home.

The Lowdown

This is one of the most talked-about unreleased interviews in hip-hop. Martinez recorded it three months before Shakur was killed, at the height of the East Coast–West Coast feud, and only a short cut ever aired. She has said for years that she held the rest back on purpose. Releasing it now, with context and a panel of voices who lived through that era, turns a piece of radio history into a full reckoning with it. Our read: expect the inflammatory parts to dominate the conversation on Nov. 27, but Martinez is clearly aiming for something bigger than a viral clip.

Key Takeaways

Netflix premieres The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez, a four-part video podcast, on Nov. 27, 2026. The trailer arrived Nov. 11.
It is built around previously unreleased parts of Martinez’s 1996 interview with Tupac Shakur, recorded at his home in Los Angeles months before his death.
Netflix names Charlamagne Tha God, Joe Budden, Big Boy, dream hampton, RZA and Wallo among the guests.
Martinez told Netflix she kept the most inflammatory parts off the air because they could have “added fuel to an already dangerous situation.”

The Tupac Tapes With Angie Martinez | Official Trailer | Netflix

The Full Story

How the 1996 Interview Happened

Martinez explained the backstory in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum. In 1996 she was a young New York radio personality, and Shakur reached out about having her appear in his “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” video. She turned that down, but when they talked, he told her his problem wasn’t with all of New York. She thought listeners needed to hear that, so he invited her to his Los Angeles home for an interview. She remembers he had New York pizza waiting for her when she arrived.

She aired the parts she felt reflected his message, mainly that he was not at war with an entire coast. The rest stayed in her possession. “There were things said in that conversation that could have hurt people, damaged relationships, and added fuel to an already dangerous situation,” Martinez told Tudum. After his death, she said, she felt a responsibility to protect “something that was never meant to become his final statement.”

Key art for The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez showing film-strip frames of Angie Martinez and Tupac Shakur on a leather couch, with the title and Only on Netflix November 27 — Official key art for *The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez*. Courtesy of Netflix

Why Martinez Is Releasing It Now

So why now? “These tapes were bigger than me,” she said. She told Tudum the difference this time is context: rather than playing the most explosive moments and letting people react, the series looks at what was happening around Shakur and in hip-hop at the time. She also describes physically cutting the original tape with a razor blade at the station, trying to work out what she could responsibly put on air.

Who Joins Her

The four episodes bring in people who were there and people who can push back on how that era is remembered, she said. Netflix lists Charlamagne Tha God, Big Boy, dream hampton, RZA, Wallo and Joe Budden, who just announced a TV deal with REVOLT for his podcast network. What’s on Netflix describes the release as the full interview being shared for the first time.

Not a Saint, Not a Villain

Martinez is also candid that not everything Shakur says will sit well. “There are things he says that I don’t agree with, and things that I think deserve to be challenged,” she told Tudum. She said she hopes viewers come away seeing him “not as a saint, not as a villain, but as a brilliant, flawed, deeply human young man.” The Tupac Tapes with Angie Martinez streams on Netflix starting Nov. 27. More Black culture and hip-hop coverage lives on our AfroDiaspora page.