Broadway Weirdness: Tupac’s Street Cred Killed, BNLs Throw a Toga Party

Tupac Shakur grew up in a tough family.  His mother, father, godfather and aunt were members of the Black Panthers. His step-father was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.  Relatives were convicted murderers, cop-killers and the kind of people who knocked over armoured trucks.  These were some bad-ass people.

Tupac’s music reflected his upbringing and what he saw on the streets of Harlem and San Francisco.  Such is his street cred that he managed to sell somewhere north of 75 million records–and he’s been dead since 1996.

All that cred is about to be flushed away with the imminent arrival of a Tupac-based musical on Broadway. Called Holler If You Hear Me, it’s been approved by Tupac’s mom, Afeni Shakur. Casting could begin as early as next week.

If someone had suggested in 1995 that material from albums like Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. and Me Against the World would one day be performed on Broadway, they would have been branded insane.

Yet here we are.  And I can’t imagine something more effective at completely crushing Tupac’s gangsta cred.

Meanwhile, someone has finally decided to turn Animal House into a musical.  The director will be Casey Nicholaw, who has crazy success directing productions like The Book of Mormon and Spamalot.  The score will be written by the Barenaked Ladies.  

If we were to go back to 1995 and suggest that the Barenaked Ladies would be an integral part of a big-money Broadway production, we’d be branded insane.  But see what writing the theme song for a hit TV show can do for your career?

I can buy the BNL on Broadway.  But Tupac?  That just seems so…wrong.