Angie Martinez still has her lost 1996 interview with 2Pac Shakur, but is worried about letting it loose because it might offend potential listeners — or the subjects of Pac's diatribes.
During her chat with Charlamagne Tha God on Monday (December 22), the radio personality and podcast host brought up the interview, saying he understood that Martinez had held it back over concerns that it might be "inflammatory."
The interview was conducted in 1996, and by Martinez's estimation it lasted about an hour and forty minutes. However, only twelve minutes of it were ever aired. The remainder has remained, unheard, in the radio host's possession.
Martinez told Charlamagne about her fear of releasing the interview, which was recorded during the height of the East v. West Coast rap war. But, she thought, "maybe it's time" to put it out after all.
"That's probably why I never put the 'Pac tapes out — because I think about the people that are going to get hurt from that. Even the people that are talked about on the tape, how that that lands," she told The Breakfast Club host around the 42-minute mark.
Martinez added that she's revisited the entire interview over the years.
"There's people [he talks about] who are no longer here, not just Big," Martinez continued. "I mean, there's people in the rap world who passed and he's talking about them, and not in a way that's helpful to the world. He was angry at the time. He was twenty-four, in the middle of a war, you know, an internal war. So he's talking shit about everybody."
Martinez added that there's an "ugliness" to 2Pac's remarks in the interview that might not be a fair representation of his legacy. The late rapper passed away just days after being shot during a September 1996 drive-by in Las Vegas.
Martinez added that she's aware that the public wants to hear the interview and mused that Charlamagne could help her figure out the logistics. From Martinez's perspective, the interview wasn't as "amazing" as people think it is.
"I was twenty. ... It's not a seasoned, evolved Angie Martinez on the radio. It's a brand new Angie Martinez on the radio. There's not a lot of follow-up questions," she admitted.
Martinez wrote about the unreleased interview in her 2016 memoir, My Voice, and told Billboard on the book's publication that the moment was a "turning point" in her career.
"It taught me a good lesson. I went with my gut," she told the outlet. "I didn’t know how it was going to work out. I was scared to air this interview and I didn’t want to be responsible for making it worse. And the truth is that I made that decision and I’m proud of that after all these years later."