A new documentary about the late Mac Dre has been officially released and the Bay Area legend’s mother credits Drake with inspiring her to get it made.
In an interview with AllHipHop.com, “Mac Wanda” Salvatto states that a conversation with the OVO frontman helped her realize the importance of keeping her son’s legacy alive.
“I met with Drake in San Francisco, we sat down and he talked with me about how Mac Dre impacted his life and his career, what he’s doing and the big impact that Mac Dre had when Drake was a young boy,” Salvattto says. “So listening to that, it kind of opened up my eyes that maybe I do need to do this. If Andre was alive he would definitely be capitalizing and making as much money as he could.”
Mac Dre: Legend of the Bay, co-produced by his family, details the Bay Area legend’s life and includes never-before-seen concert footage, home movies, exclusive interviews with Mac Dre’s friends, family, and big-name artists such as Wiz Khalifa, Tech N9ne, Warren G.
Salvatto says that hurt and pain made her turn down many opportunities to capitalize on her son’s legacy, but previous conversation with Drake helped her see things differently.
“I had been approached by a lot of people to do movies, to do books, to do this and to do that, and interviews and for years I turned it down,” Salvatto said. “I didn’t want to do it – I couldn’t do it. So I stopped everything and I purposefully didn’t want to monetize or capitalize on any of it because I was hurt. But in the last few years – to be honest it may have all started when I got that call from Drake and that was three years ago.”
Following Mac Dre’s murder in 2004, Wanda Salvatto described how she and his daughter went into seclusion to mourn privately, but his increased popularity and fame made the healing process difficult.
“For a while up, for I’d say up to about eight years after he passed, his daughter and I kind of like went into seclusion,” Salvatto continued. “As you know, we were really depressed, really hurt and really traumatized by his death and everything. The hard part for us was we didn’t really get a chance to grieve or mourn privately, because once he got killed he became an even bigger public figure.”
Mac Dre: Legend of the Bay is available now on iTunes, Amazon and LegendOfTheBay.com.
