After FX announced a 5-part docuseries entitled Dear Mama, many questioned Allen Hughes being called upon to direct. The talented director received backlash due to his past incident with Tupac Shakur.
Initially Tupac and the Hughes brothers clicked, forming a friendship that resulted in the twins directing music videos for Shakur. Looking to get their feet into Hollywood, the Hughes brothers needed to recruit a known artist in order for New Line Cinema to give the green light on Menace 2 Society. Tupac instantly signed up and ensured the Hughes Brothers movie was on its way.
Unfortunately things went left as Allen and Tupac couldn’t see eye to eye. Eventually Tupac was fired by Allen Hughes, which then prompted a beat down led by Tupac during Spice-1’s music video Triggas Got No Heart, which was being directed by the Hughes brothers.
Allen took Tupac to court and Shakur was found guilty after his Yo! MTV Raps interview bragging about the beat down was played in the courtroom.
Many wonder if Allen still holds any hard feelings over his fallout with Tupac and perhaps will affect the Dear Mama docuseries. Appearing on The Breakfast Club, Allen Hughes responded to any backlash.
“What kind of b**** a** s** would I be on to first off not be proud of the icon he’s become and why would I want to s*** on that. And if anything I took the job to understand him more. You go around the world. Africa, South America, Asia, Europe, you see that mural. You don’t see anyone around the world like that. I don’t give a f*** who it is,” said Allen Hughes.
“And I wondered when I traveled. He’s this strange paradoxical, if I can use that word, 20th century figure that you can project anything you want to it. Love, fighter, sane, sinner, poet, philosopher, violence. Whatever you want to see, you’ll see in Tupac. I’ve noticed that about him. He’s almost biblical in that way. But I was upset about that. I was like what is the true meaning of this journey. I had to go back to his mother to find that. And that fight for social justice and what he truly stood for. What his true morals were,” Hughes added on the world’s most dangerous morning show.
Along with trying to unpackage Tupac, Allen Hughes also felt the Tupac story had never been told properly. “It was always surface stuff. Not to knock anyone. There were some docs and some stuff that were decent. All the power of cinema that I can bring. Emotions, spiritual, physiological… I just want to understand him,” said Hughes.
On its premiere, episodes 1 and 2 of Dear Mama will air on FX at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Every week after on Friday a new episode will air as the series concludes on May 12th, two days before Mother’s Day.
