Cynthia Erivo Will Play Tupac's Mother in the Snoop Dogg Biopic

Cynthia Erivo has played a witch the whole world can sing along with. Her next role is quieter, heavier, and rooted in real history: she will play Afeni Shakur, the mother of Tupac Shakur, in Snoop, Universal Pictures' biopic of Snoop Dogg.

The casting, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter as an exclusive and confirmed by Variety the same morning, puts one of the most decorated performers of her generation — a Tony, Grammy and Emmy winner and a three-time Oscar nominee — inside the defining story of West Coast hip-hop. Erivo joins a cast led by Jonathan Daviss, one of the stars of Netflix's Outer Banks, who is portraying Snoop Dogg, the Long Beach kid who emerged in the 1990s to become one of the biggest names in rap.

Camron Jones, best known for Amazon's young-adult drama Panic, plays Tupac Shakur. Around those three, the film is building out the whole Death Row universe: Myles Bullock Be as Dr. Dre, Algee Smith as Warren G, Tre Hale as Suge Knight, Olly Sholotan as Kurupt, Corey Champagne as Nate Dogg and Jonica Booth as the Lady of Rage. Lauren London plays Snoop's late mother, Beverly Tate, and Laya DeLeon Hayes plays his wife, Shante Broadus.

Afeni Shakur is not a decorative role in that story, and the filmmakers know it. Before she was Tupac's mother she was a prominent member of the Black Panther Party. Born Alice Faye Williams in North Carolina in 1947, she moved to the Bronx with her mother at 11, joined the Panthers in 1968 after hearing Bobby Seale speak, and married fellow Panther Lumumba Shakur. Her relationship with her son was close, complicated and at times strained — and Tupac turned it into "Dear Mama," a top 10 hit that remains the most tender record of his career. Whoever plays Afeni has to carry the activist, the mother and the woman that song was written about. Erivo's casting says the production is taking that weight seriously.

Behind the camera, the pedigree matches the ambition. Craig Brewer — Hustle & Flow, and most recently Song Sung Blue — is directing, working from his own rewrite of a script first written by Joe Robert Cole, who co-wrote Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. Snoop Dogg is producing alongside Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer, the producer behind 8 Mile, and Allan Mandelbaum, plus Death Row Pictures president Sara Ramaker. The film will incorporate music from Snoop's own catalog, and it is the first project under Death Row Pictures' overall deal with NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios.

Erivo comes to it straight off the two-part Wicked phenomenon at the same studio, where her Elphaba earned her Golden Globe, SAG, Critics' Choice, NAACP, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations. She recently hosted Saturday Night Live: U.K., executive produced and stars in the film adaptation of Prima Facie, which premiered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, and leads Children of Blood and Bone, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Snoop is a different register entirely — no green paint, no defying gravity, just a real woman whose life ran through the center of American music history.

The film is in production now in Southern California, and Universal has dated it for an Aug. 6 theatrical release. A Snoop Dogg biopic was always going to be a big swing. Casting Cynthia Erivo as Afeni Shakur is the clearest sign yet that the swing is aimed at something more than nostalgia.