Director Of Tupac Musical Will Stray Away From Negative Black Stereotypes

Kenny Leon, the director of "Holler If You Hear Me," the Broadway musical revolving around the music of Tupac Shakur, confirms that the play is indeed on the way. Describing the musical as an “unconditional love" tale and “anti-violence story,” Leon says with this project he will attempt to shine a positive light on hip-hop and African-American culture.

“Some people look at hip-hop and they think they hate everything Black or they think they hate everything that uses profanity, or they think it’s about gun violence,” said Leon. Bestowing the rapper a “prophet" he continued, “When you look at the lyrics of his music, he was always talking about universal things like honor, betrayal, family. [Tupac] was just trying to talk about life and say something about the country and being an American and raising a family here.”

Later citing “a backlog in available theaters" as the reason for the delayed announcement, Leon assures that the cast is in place and just in need of a home. “We had to have a group of actors that could sing, that could rap, that could dance, that could do hip-hop dance as well as straightforward Broadway musical dance. We had to have a good mix of 24 people who could do it all, but above all we needed actors who could tell the story.”