My Posse's on Broadway: When Hip Hop and Theater Meet
The Tupac musical lands a Broadway run this year and more.
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The Rose That Grew From Concrete - Tupac’s Broadway play “Holla If Ya Hear Me” opened this month and stars musician and poet Saul Williams. The play is inspired by Makaveli’s poems and lyrics and is directed by Tony Award winning director Kenny Leon. Leon told CBS News that the play uses 21 songs that Pac wrote but "it is not an autobiographical story about his day-to-day life."Instead, “Holla If Ya Hear Me” centers around an ex-con trying to turn his life around after coming home from prison but is forced back into the streets and gang life after his friend is murdered. Tupac’s mother Afeni Shakur is also one of the producers of the play.Click here now for your tickets if you’re in New York and let’s take a look at a few other hip-hop stars that have crossed paths on Broadway. -Alex Gale(Photo: Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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"Hard Knock Life" - Legendary producer Mark the 45 King cleverly sampled the classic musical Annie for Jay Z's breakthrough hit "Hard Knock Life." (Photos from left: Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images, Courtesy Columbia Pictures)
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Diddy's Debut - You knew it was going to happen at some point — Diddy made his Broadway debut in the 2004 revival of Raisin in the Sun alongside Phylicia Rashad, Sanaa Lathan, Audra McDonald and others. (Photo: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni)
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Top Dog Underdog - Mos Def broke into Broadway as one-half of the cast of Top Dog Underdog, the two-man Pulitzer Prize-winning 2002 play written by Suzan Lori-Parks and co-starring Jeffrey Wright.(Photo: Adrian Sidney/PictureGroup.com)
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"Popular" - Yeezy knows all about theatrics and drama, so it's only fitting that he flipped a sample from long-running Broadway musical Wicked for "Popular," an unreleased banger that was reportedly intended for his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album. (Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)
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Fela! - Jay Z, Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, signed on as co-producers of the acclaimed Broadway musical Fela!, a look at the late Nigerian Afrobeat genius Fela Kuti.(Photo: Charley Gallay/Getty Images)
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Hip Hop Monologues: Inside the Life and Mind of Jim Jones - Dipset's capo brought his story to the stage in 2008 with the two-day Off-Broadway run of Hip Hop Monologues: Inside the Life and Mind of Jim Jones.(Photo: Andrew Marks/PictureGroup)
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In the Heights - Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights fused hip-hop and salsa to explore life in Washington Heights, a primarily Dominican-American neighborhood in Manhattan.(Photo: Courtesy intheheightsthemusical.com)
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Queen Latifah - Queen Latifah has yet to appear on Broadway, but she did star in the big-screen adaptations of the musicals Hairspray and Chicago, nabbing a Best Supporting Actress nod at the Oscars for the latter.(Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
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The Sevens - Renowned NYC actor and playwright Will Power brought The Sevens, an Off-Broadway hip-hop adaptation of the ancient Greek tragedy Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus, to the stage in 2006.(Photo: Courtesy New York Theatre Workshop)