 |
| Patrick Heaphy, left, Tupac Shakur and Jason Keller are shown at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., during a 1995 interview shoot. (Courtesy LCM247) |
The filmmaker announced Thursday that an extended presentation of his interview with Shakur will premiere Oct. 12 on YouTube, exactly 31 years after the rapper's release from prison. He also plans to auction the original camera and recording tapes, with part of the proceeds intended to help revive the concert that first brought him to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York.
The concert never materialized, but the interview became part of the extensive documentary record Shakur left behind before his death in 1996.
Heaphy said the original assignment took an unexpected turn almost as soon as he arrived.
"Most people don't know that I went to Dannemora to film Tupac for a proposed jailhouse concert aimed at stopping youth violence," Heaphy said in Thursday's announcement.
Shakur, he recalled, greeted the crew with news that he expected to be released.
In an earlier interview with Rorschach Art Publication, Heaphy described traveling to the prison with interviewer Frank Cooley and production assistant Jason Keller. What followed was an unusually candid encounter with a rapper whose music was dominating the charts even as his legal troubles dominated headlines.
Shakur was serving a sentence stemming from a New York sexual abuse conviction. His third solo album, "Me Against the World," had debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in March 1995, making him the first artist to achieve that distinction while incarcerated.
The album included "Dear Mama," his tribute to his mother, Afeni Shakur, and offered a more reflective side of an artist frequently portrayed through his confrontations with police, rivals and the music industry.
Heaphy's footage captured Shakur discussing his circumstances, ambitions and experiences behind bars during a period when his career and personal life were about to change dramatically.
Shakur was released on $1.4 million bond pending appeal on Oct. 12, 1995, and joined Death Row Records. Four months later, he released "All Eyez on Me," the blockbuster double album that included "California Love" and "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted."
He was fatally wounded in a Las Vegas shooting in September 1996 and died six days later at 25.
Although the upcoming presentation is being promoted as an extended version of the 1995 conversation, the footage itself is not a newly discovered recording.
Material from the prison session appeared in earlier documentaries, including "Tupac vs." and "Tupac Uncensored and Uncut: The Lost Prison Tapes," the latter released in 2009 and co-directed by Heaphy and Ken Peters.
The producers have not specified how much, if any, previously unreleased footage will appear in the new edition.
The planned auction presents a separate chapter in the recording's history.
Heaphy and his production company, LCM247, say they intend to offer the original Sony camera used during the prison shoot, along with source tapes from the production. Heaphy says he has personally authenticated the camera and holds the registered U.S. copyright to the interview footage.
An auction house, sale date and estimated value have not been announced.
The filmmaker also hopes to use a portion of the proceeds and a proposed crowdfunding campaign to finance a concert featuring contemporary artists and addressing youth violence.
For now, that event remains a proposal. No performers, venue or date have been identified.
The effort would revisit an idea conceived at a particularly turbulent point in Shakur's life, when the rapper was balancing commercial success with imprisonment and speaking publicly about the conditions affecting young Black Americans.
Whether the new release offers substantially more of that conversation remains to be seen.
What Heaphy wants to accomplish with it, however, has come full circle.
"If the film, the camera and the tapes can now help us finally make that concert happen," he said, "that feels like the right next chapter."
"The Tupac Prison Interview" is scheduled to premiere Monday, Oct. 12, at 9 p.m. Eastern on LCM247's YouTube channel.
