Why did the US vice president want Tupac’s debut album pulled from shops? What did Tupac see in a newspaper that made him write ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’? And, what happened when the persona he built began to take over?

In Part 2 of the Tupac Shakur series, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch trace his rise from young rapper to film star and a target in America’s culture wars.

After a Texas state trooper is killed, the defence points to a cassette of Tupac’s debut album. Vice President Dan Quayle calls for the record to be withdrawn. As the backlash grows, Tupac is making films with Janet Jackson and writing songs about Black women whose stories rarely make the headlines. Peter and Afua ask what his Thug Life tattoo was meant to say, and how much of the character he created he could leave behind.

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00:00 The cassette at the centre of a murder case

01:29 How Tupac’s debut became a national controversy

03:46 The story behind ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’

09:23 Tupac goes to Hollywood

18:39 The women Tupac wrote about

20:55 What Thug Life meant to Tupac

27:24 The confrontations that followed fame

30:21 The case that leads into Part 3

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources and ideas:

Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

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Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

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Content warning: this episode includes discussion of war, killing and the ongoing violence in Gaza.

Why did a cactus in an empty Palestinian village become the start of a novel?

What happens when the ghost of a girl killed in 1967 asks a teenager from North London for help?

And, why did Amy's tutor tell her, aged 20, to choose another cause?

Peter and Afua talk to novelist Amy Abdelnoor about her debut, Ever Land.

Amy volunteered in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and lived in Ramallah during the Second Intifada. Ever Land follows two girls. Safa is a Palestinian girl killed in the 1967 Six-Day War, who can't move on until she finds her little sister. Dinah is a Jewish teenager from London who moves to Israel decades later. Amy talks about the cactus plants that still mark emptied villages, why she chose fiction over non-fiction, the email that told her there are "two sides to every story", writing grief, and her Lebanese grandfather.

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00:00 Introduction

03:07 What Ever Land is about

03:56 Why a ghost? The cactus in the empty village

08:25 Why fiction, not history

11:16 "Two sides to every story"

15:30 Writing as the world changed

20:46 Writing grief

24:05 Ghosts in the landscape

27:31 Is Safa every ghost?

30:30 Amy's Lebanese roots

33:40 "Choose another cause"

Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:

Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.

legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Content warning: this episode includes violence, drug addiction and references to sexual abuse.

How did a pregnant Black Panther with no legal training defend herself against 156 charges, and win?

Why did she name her son after the last Inca ruler, executed in Cusco in 1572?

And, how did a ballet-dancing theatre kid become the rapper a US vice president said should never have been released?

In the first of four episodes, Peter and Afua begin the story of Tupac Shakur.

Thirty years after the shooting in Las Vegas, a jury has finally reached a verdict. But Tupac's story begins much earlier, in a Manhattan courtroom in 1971. His mother, Afeni Shakur, is on trial as one of the Panther 21. She is pregnant, she has sacked her lawyer, and she is facing life in prison. Peter and Afua follow her from North Carolina to the Black Panthers, and through the FBI's war on the movement. Then they follow her son. He grows up through New York, Baltimore and Marin City, and the episode ends with his first album.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. In this series, members also get bonus interviews with a former member of Tupac's crew and a filmmaker.

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00:00 Las Vegas, 30 years on

03:26 Afeni Shakur joins the Panthers

06:34 Hoover, COINTELPRO and the Panther 21

10:46 Pregnant in jail

11:39 Afeni defends herself

15:23 Why "Tupac"?

20:47 A revolutionary family

24:11 Baltimore and the School for the Arts

29:46 Marin City

32:36 "Same Song" and the first album

Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:

Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.

legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:

Instagram: @originallegacypodcast

TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.