In its first two seasons, Slow Burn looked back at two of the biggest stories of the late 20th century—the Watergate scandal and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Season three of the show tackles another: the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.
In this episode: Biggie releases “Who Shot Ya,” an instant hip-hop classic that Tupac takes as a personal affront. Tupac calls out Biggie and Puffy in a jailhouse interview. And the Death Row and Bad Boy crews start preparing for war.
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In 1992, Ronald Ray Howard shot and killed Texas state trooper Bill Davidson. His lawyer argued he’d been driven to murder by the music he’d been playing in his car: a dubbed copy of Tupac Shakur’s first album, 2Pacalypse Now.
On the second episode of Slow Burn’s third season: How gangsta rap and law enforcement found themselves at war.
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On the first episode of Slow Burn’s third season: How a violent robbery severed Tupac’s friendship with Biggie Smalls and sparked a bicoastal beef that consumed the world of hip-hop.
In November 1994, while on trial for sexual abuse, Tupac Shakur is shot five times in a New York recording studio. In the aftermath, he starts to suspect that his erstwhile friend Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls, might be involved. It was the start of a beef that would consume the world of hip-hop and end with both men dead.
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In its first two seasons, Slow Burn looked back at two of the biggest stories of the late 20th century—the Watergate scandal and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Season three of the show tackles another: the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. The story takes place at a moment when hip-hop was taking over pop culture, and the world’s two most famous rappers were a former theater kid from the Bay Area and a one-time crack dealer from Brooklyn. In just a few years, they changed music forever. They went from friends to enemies. And they ended up victims of a deadly rivalry between two rap scenes.
How is it that two of the most famous performers in the world were murdered within a year of each other—and their killings were never solved? Find out in Slow Burn season three: Biggie and Tupac.
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Linda Taylor was a con artist, a kidnapper, maybe even a murderer. She was also America’s original “welfare queen,” the villain Ronald Reagan needed to create a vision of a country being taken advantage of by its poorest citizens. In this new narrative mini-series, Josh Levin, one of the editors behind Slow Burn, reveals the never-before-told story of a woman whose singular life was forgotten in the rush to create a vicious American stereotype.
This podcast is based on Josh Levin’s new book, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth.
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A special edition of Slow Burn features Leon Neyfakh live on stage. In the second of two episodes, Leon was joined in by Emily Bazelon, Wesley Morris, Dan Savage, and Andi Zeisler to explore lingering questions about the Clinton legacy. Plus, Clara Jeffery discusses Hillary Clinton.
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A special edition of Slow Burn features Leon Neyfakh live on stage. In the first of two episodes, Leon was joined in by Ruth Marcus and Rick Perlstein to explore lingering questions about the Clinton legacy. Plus, a story from the season 2 cutting room floor.
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Juanita Broaddrick told Ken Starr’s team of prosecutors that Bill Clinton had raped her in 1978. Her story wasn’t included in the Starr Report—but members of congress found out about it anyway, and had to decide how it would affect their vote on impeachment. In the final episode of our series on Clinton’s impeachment, Leon Neyfakh talks to Broaddrick, and to Lisa Myers, the NBC News reporter whose interview with Broaddrick became a cause célèbre during the impeachment trial. What does it mean that Broaddrick’s story has never really become a part of Bill Clinton’s?
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Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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Every week, Slate Plus members get a special episode of Slow Burn in which Leon Neyfakh talks to people connected with the Clinton impeachment saga. This week, we’re presenting excerpts from those bonus episodes, featuring interviews with Linda Tripp, consultant Dick Morris, former acting solicitor general Walter Dellinger, and Dillon Teachout, an intern in the independent counsel’s office. Learn more about Slate Plus membership at slate.com/slowburn.
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Today it’s conventional wisdom that all feminists hypocritically turned their backs on Monica Lewinsky. In fact, the scandal provoked an intense debate within the feminist movement about sex, power, and consent. For some, it was obvious that Clinton had victimized Lewinsky and needed to be thrown overboard. For others, it was just as obvious that the scandal was part of a political war in which Clinton was the good guy. In the seventh episode of our series on Clinton’s impeachment, Leon Neyfakh excavates the arguments and ideas that divided liberals—and feminists in particular—at the height of the scandal.
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Some of the most withering criticism of Clinton came from a coalition of conservative activists whose political views were bound up with their faith. The influence of the Christian right within the Republican Party had been growing steadily since the Reagan years. When the Lewinsky story broke, the movement’s leaders pounced on it with righteous vigor.
In the sixth episode of our series on Clinton’s impeachment, Leon Neyfakh charts the religious right’s campaign against the president and how it failed.
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Aside from Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, the most pivotal player in the Clinton impeachment saga may have been Linda Tripp—an ordinary person who made extraordinary choices that precipitated the entire crisis. In perhaps the deepest and most intimate interview she’s ever given, Tripp talks to Leon Neyfakh about what she did, and why.
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What happened between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? Why did it happen? And what are we supposed to do about the fact that the whims and impulses of individual men can—and constantly do—alter the course of history?
In the fourth episode of our series on Clinton’s impeachment, Leon Neyfakh details Clinton and Lewinsky’s reckless affair.
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When Bill Clinton went to Washington, rumors and accusations from his Arkansas past went with him. But even his most dedicated political enemies couldn't predict where their efforts would lead.
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In 1993, Bill and Hillary Clinton moved into the White House on a swell of optimism. In less than a year, the new administration was mired in a sea of scandals: Travelgate, Filegate, Nannygate, and, most consequentially, Whitewater. What went wrong?
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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For 11 hours, Monica Lewinsky faced off against federal prosecutors who wanted her to help them take down the president and threatened her with decades in jail.
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn
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The saga of Bill Clinton’s impeachment is rich with forgotten characters, surprising subplots, and opportunities to reflect on just how much America has changed over the past 20 years. Whether you’re well-versed in the tale of Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, or you’re fuzzy on the details, this season of Slow Burn will take you further into the story than you’ve ever been.
From its origins in the Whitewater real estate controversy, the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, and the suicide of Vince Foster, Clinton’s near-removal from office was the culmination of a process that remains poorly understood—and continues to reverberate through our political system today.
While Season I of Slow Burn captured what it was like to live through Watergate, Season II offers a fresh reexamination of the choices, circumstances, and manipulations that nearly destroyed the 42nd president and forever changed the life of a former White House intern.
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A special edition of Slow Burn features Leon Neyfakh live on stage in New York City. On April 19th, Leon was joined by Bob Woodward, Virginia Heffernan, Gail Sheehy, Mary DeOreo and Marc Lackritz to discuss Trump, Watergate and Nixon’s legacy.
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What had to happen for the Watergate scandals to end Richard Nixon’s career? And was his downfall inevitable? In the final episode of Slow Burn’s first season, Leon Neyfakh assesses the president’s desperate final campaign to save himself—and the people and institutions that finally brought him down.
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. This week, we're releasing some samples of those episodes—interviews with people with a unique perspective on Watergate.
Next week: The end. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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What did Richard Nixon do when he felt the walls closing in? How did the country respond? And what did it feel like when people finally got to hear those tapes?
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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Why were so many Americans ready to believe conspiracy theories after Watergate? How did those beliefs help trigger Nixon‘s downfall? And given what we know about Watergate—what separates a conspiracy theory from just a theory?
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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At a bar in Queens, and in the Senate offices, Nixon's supporters stood with him long after it was clear his hands were dirty. How did they rationalize their position? And what, finally, made them waver?
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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How a folksy segregationist senator, a team of young investigators, and a few whistleblowers staged the hearings that made Watergate must-see TV.
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Slow Burn every week. Find out more at slate.com/slowburn.
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Woodward and Bernstein, Walter Cronkite, and a host of other journalists tried to make people care about Watergate in the run-up to the 1972 election. They totally failed.
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In 1973, the Senate Watergate hearings gripped the nation. But the first congressional hearings on the scandal took place a year earlier—and featured an angry Texan shouting at four empty chairs.
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People called her crazy, and to be fair she must have seemed crazy. But she was onto something. How Martha Mitchell, the celebrity wife of one of Nixon’s closest henchmen, tried to blow the whistle on Watergate—and ended up ruining her life.
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It took two years for the Watergate scandal to unfold—for a break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters to go from a weird little caper to a constitutional crisis that brought down a president. What was it like to experience those two years in real time?
Hosted by Leon Neyfakh. An eight-episode podcast series made possible by Slate Plus members. Coming Nov. 28.
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