2Pac’s TV Interview Debut with Tanya Hart

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Rappers, right to left, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Hammer, joined the black-activists group Brotherhood Crusade Thursday, Aug. 15, 1996, in Los Angeles to kick off a campaign against the "three-strikes" law and to oppose the California Civil Rights Initiative, the anti-affirmative action measure. (AP Photo/Frank Wiese)
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Los Angeles, CA — In February 1992 Tanya Hart conducted the first television interview with 2Pac on BET’s Live from LA with Tanya Hart. Clips from this interview were used in the 2003 Oscar nominated Best Documentary Feature Film Tupac: Resurrection. This BET Tanya-2Pac interview has gone viral on various online outlets over the past 20 years. On April 7, 2Pac will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Snoop Dogg will do the formal induction speech on behalf of his late friend and former label mate 2Pac. Tanya Hart set up the BET west coast studio operations in 1990 at the request of BET founder Robert Johnson and launched several of its first west coast programs including Live from LA with Tanya Hart and Screen Scene. Other African American stars who were interviewed on Live from LA with Tanya Hart include, Ice Cube, Halle Berry, Will Smith, Al Haymon, Smokey Robinson, Wilt Chamberlain, John Singleton, and other notables.

Tupac Shakur’s catalogue remains a best seller as does the recent documentary film Tupac Assassination: Battle of Compton. In addition, the 2Pac feature film All Eyez on Me is slated for an upcoming release. As she did with New Edition and New Kids on the Block in putting both these groups on television for their first time so too with 2Pac, Tanya Hart provided an opportunity for an up-an-coming musical talent to reach a broad audience.

Ice Cube returned the favor by including excerpts from his BET interview with Tanya on a track on his best-selling CD Predator. Tanya Hart is pleased that 2Pac is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7.

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