Based on the book ‘Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur’ by Greg Kading
Starring Josh Duhamel, Bokeem Woodbine, Wavyy Jonez
Rated MA
Score 5.5/6

A scripted True Crime series based on the murder investigations of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. Tupac was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996 at the age of 25, and Biggie was also shot and killed by an unknown assailant in March 1997 at the age of 24.

Right from the beginning I found myself asking the question ‘was i going to binge watch this?’ For those of you wondering I came close, especially considering the entire series is 10 episodes long, with the first episode being the longest of the entire series. Before we get to far into things for those of you who are wondering if I’m a fan of Tupac or Biggie? If have to say that despite an eclectic taste in music at this time I have not found myself drawn to Tupac or Biggie’s music. So, I was also approaching this series without any knowledge of the theories that have developed over the years.
The last piece of ‘true crime ‘that I remember watching had something to do with the Underbelly series. Part of me would have liked to have seen Unsolved told in a style similar to that of Underbelly. However, Unsolved is less flashy and has a ‘just the facts’ feel as the series concentrates on a multi law-enforcement task force (which Greg Kading was part of and later ran) that investigated the murders of rap stars Tupac and Biggie in the mid-2000s.

There were a few people cast in this whose work I was familiar with most notably Bookeem Woodbine and Josh Duhamel, though it has been awhile since I last saw them in anything. My first thoughts of Aisha Hinds’ performance of Voletta Wallace was wow, particularly in her scene with Detective Russell Poole (portrayed by Jimmi Simpson). In the beginning I was not sure what to make of Simpson’s portrayal of Poole but I have to admit that Simpson won me over and I found myself admiring Poole for his principals by the end of the series.
I thought it was interesting that Marcc Rose got a second chance to play Tupac (Rose previously played Tupac in Straight Outta Compton), Wavyy Jonez gave a great performance as Biggie and I hope to see more of his work. Both Rose and Jonez had a great onscreen presence. Though Tupac and Biggie did become rivals I enjoyed the friendlier scenes that they had together, one of which it wouldn’t surprise me to learn it was dramatised for the series. However, I still hope it happened in real life. I found that one of the more memorable sequences in the series was the interview of Frank Alexander about the Tupac, Pooch Hall’s monologue as Alexander certainly was memorable but this was heightened by use of footage from the actual night.