The Broadway musical Holler If Ya Hear Me, which was inspired by the music and lyrics of the rapper Tupac Shakur, will close just six weeks into its run after poor ticket sales and tepid reviews.

Directed by Tony award-winner Kenny Leon, Holler has had 38 performances and 17 preview shows since previews began on 2 June. The show officially opened on 19 June and will close on 20 July.

In a statement, Holler producer Eric L Gold said: "It saddens me that due to the financial burdens of Broadway, I was unable to sustain this production longer in order to give it time to bloom on Broadway. Tupac's urgent socially important insights and the audiences' nightly rousing standing ovations deserve to be experienced by the world."

However standing ovations could not save the show, which is one of the worst-selling musicals in recent years, according to the New York Times.

The production grossed $154,948 last week, just 17% of the show's potential weekly earnings. Sales never cracked $200,000 a week, which Variety called "a drastically low number for any Broadway production, much less a musical with a cast of 22 and an orchestra of 9."

Holler If Ya Hear Me did not feature Tupac as a character, instead using his music to explore the challenges facing a group of young African Americans who are torn between gang revenge and living law-abiding lives. Critics panned the production's "stereotypical" depiction of black America, calling it "painfully cliched" and "clunky". In her review for the Guardian, Alexis Soloski called it "dead on arrival" and "profoundly un-engaging".

In an interview with Variety published last week, Gold said he made a "rookie mistake by underestimating how much capital was necessary" to keep it running and said if Holler failed, "it's going to be difficult to do another rap or hip-hop show on Broadway".

Almost 20 years after Shakur's death in 1996, Holler If Ya Hear Me was the first major adaptation of the rapper's life. In February this year, film director John Singleton announced his plans to write, direct and produce a biopic of Shakur's life, but a lead has yet to be cast. Despite multiple plans for a biopic, no film has ever passed pre-production stage.