Tupac Shakur wrote the song “Dear Mama” in 1995, a year before he was killed by a gunman in Las Vegas. The song chronicles the crack addiction of his mother, Afeni Shakur, and the poverty they endured during that time, the 1980s. Afeni, who died in 2016, was an impressive figure—an activist and a prominent member of the Black Panther Party. Indeed, in 1969 she famously represented herself and 20 others against several counts of a bomb conspiracy. “I was young. I was arrogant. And I was brilliant in court,” she wrote in her autobiography, “because I thought this was the last time I could speak. The last time before they locked me up forever.” Afeni was acquitted. She worked as a paralegal, gave birth to her son, Tupac, and her daughter, Sekyiwa. But in the 80s her addiction began; until she got sober in 1991, the family bounced from New York to Baltimore to Oakland to Los Angeles. In this five-part documentary, Tupac’s riveting story is interwoven with his mother’s. Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Mike Tyson weigh in. —Elena Clavarino