News of August 13, 2003
XXL Announces Tupac Issue Featuring Afeni Shakur on the Cover
In August 2003, XXL editor-in-chief Elliott Wilson announced a second Tupac issue, with Afeni Shakur on the cover and an exclusive interview.
The hip-hop magazine XXL dedicated a standalone issue to Tupac in 2003 as well, and this time his mother was to be on the cover. Editor-in-chief Elliott Wilson announced this in an interview with AllHipHop published on August 13, 2003. Next month, Afeni Shakur would be on the front of the magazine, he said. It was the Tupac issue, which XXL was now doing for two years in a row, accompanied by an exclusive interview with her. He hoped that readers who loved Tupac would appreciate that and buy the issue.
An Interview on the Seventh Anniversary of His Death
The issue fell in the weeks surrounding the seventh anniversary of Tupac’s death in September. Twenty years later, in a collection for the docuseries Dear Mama, XXL itself described the interview as a rare glimpse into the relationship between mother and son. Afeni Shakur reportedly honored her son in it and recreated several of his most famous photographs to commemorate the seventh anniversary of his death. In the same interview with AllHipHop, Wilson’s dispute with rival magazine The Source was actually the main focus, with Wilson denying its journalistic credibility.