Tupac Shakur and mother Afeni getting documentary treatment at FX
Slain rapper Tupac Shakur and his mother, Afeni Shakur, will be the focus of a five-part documentary headed to FX, the network announced Tuesday at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Directed by Allen Hughes, Outlaw: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur will recount the story of a mother and son, as told by the people who knew them best.
“There’s a ton of music and a ton of material, but there’s also an unbelievably fascinating biography, which is really a biography about Tupac’s mother and father and how he grew up in various places with them,” FX CEO John Landgraf told reporters at TCA. “[Shakur] is a very fascinating man and a very complicated artist. I think the kinds of stories that appeal to us are the ones that have characters at the center of them but they’re also about humanity in a really broad way. They’re about big, profound ideas about art and society.”
He added, “So I think what excites me about this documentary is, to me, even though it’s a nonfiction show, it falls into the same category as American Crime Story. I think there’s just a lot of things to be excavated through writing and character that are really worth examining about humanity in general and American society in particular.”
FX also announced five more documentary projects, including one about Gary L. Stewart’s search for his birth father, as chronicled in the best-selling book The Most Dangerous Animal of All. (Spoiler alert: Stewart came to believe, after a years-long search, that his biological father was the notorious serial murderer known as the Zodiac Killer.) The four-part docuseries is directed by Kief Davidson.
The other documentaries in the works are:
Hip-Hop Untold, a six-part examination of America’s criminalization of the genre and fascination with the street culture that exists within it.
Pride, a six-part series chronicling the fight for LGBTQ rights in America, as seen through the lens of our national history, and the biggest pop culture and political events.
A Wilderness of Terror, a six-part documentary series based on Errol Morris’ novel of the same name about an army sergeant who is sent to prison for killing his family. The plot twist: He’s probably innocent.
Women in Comedy, a feature-length documentary by director Andrea Nevins examining the changing landscape for women in stand-up through intimate interviews and the examination of their groundbreaking art in the post-#MeToo era.
The six documentaries come as part an expansion into non-fiction programming by FX, with air dates yet to be announced.
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