The Los Angeles City Council partnered with the African American Film Critics Association Friday to honor the USA Network series “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G.,” which is currently airing on the network.
The series profiles the lives of the two famous rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G, both of whom were shot to death in the 1990s in killings that remain unsolved. It explores the police investigations into the homicides, including the accusation by one detective that Los Angeles police officers may be responsible for one of the deaths and it was covered up.
Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents part of South Los Angeles, told the council the series was being honored as part of the inaugural AAFCA Day at City Hall for they way it depicted his neighborhood, which during the 90s was plagued with gang violence and severely impacted by the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.
Harris-Dawson said he wanted the council to honor films and TV shows that depict South Los Angeles “in a way that respects our dignity and makes us full human beings, and even when we have stories that have sadness and tragedy we do them in a way that shows ours neighborhoods, shows our communities and shows our people in a positive way. And so today I’m very proud to partner with the African American Film Critics Association to recognize a particular project that has been shooting over the last few years about a time in our city that was very tumultuous, the early and mid 1990s.”
Shakur was killed in a car-to-car shooting on Sept. 13, 1996 in Las Vegas, while The Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace and also went by the stage name Biggie Smalls, was killed in a car-to-car shooting in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. Both men were among the most popular musicians in the country at the time of their deaths.
Harris-Dawson said the series is noteworthy for the time to it took to explore the lives of the people who knew the rappers, and for showing how the rappers’ relationship was complex, as the two were close friends before various feuds sparked a public rivalry some believe is connected to their deaths,
“It talks about the relationship between Tupac and Biggie Smalls and it talks about the relationships of the people around them,” Harris-Dawson told City News Service. “I think a lot of times when these stories get told, its just, `Oh it’s just one gang against another gang and people get killed.’ And it’s much deeper than that, and the conflicts go much deeper, and you have all the themes of jealousy and envy and insecurity and all that come with any tragedy like this. And this series shows that.”
Anthony Hemingway, the director of the series, told the council that “`Unsolved’ was an opportunity for us to give back. In many ways it was a love letter to our culture and a chance for the world to see Tupac and Biggie as brothers, instead of two distant strangers.”
The series also focuses on the investigation of former LAPD Det. Russell Poole, who retired from the force in 1999 and died in 2015. It explores Poole’s belief — which he documented in several media interviews and the book “LAbyrinth” by Randall Sullivan — that LAPD officers were connected to Wallace’s death and that former LAPD Chief Bernard Parks ignored the evidence.
Parks denied any wrongdoing in the case and later went on to be elected to the City Council’s Eight District. He was replaced by Harris-Dawson in 2015.
Harris-Dawson told CNS he didn’t have an opinion on Parks’ handling of the case but agreed there were a lot questions.
“I think you can always second guess these things,” Harris-Dawson said. “But it was such a tumultuous time in Los Angeles, that almost everything that happened in that time period is pretty colored. So we just kind of don’t know. And fortunately we’ve recovered from that. And I think one of the ways we recovered is by making sure we tell the story and air the laundry.”
Harris-Dawson also said he thought it was important to shine a light on some of the city’s difficult history.
“I think there were a lot of questions in the city at that time, and that’s also right around the time of Rodney King, and was followed up by the Rampart hearings, right? So there was a lot of concern about a variety of folks at different levels in the department, and the story is the story,” he said. “We can’t make it go away by not talking about it. And in fact, the sure way to give it life is to not talk about it.”
The 10-part series is scheduled to air its last episode on Tuesday and has received positive reviews from critics, with the Los Angeles Times calling it “a compelling and fresh look at two of the most famous cold cases in entertainment history.”