Back In The Day: My Life And Times With Tupac Shakur

by Darrin Keith Bastfield

A legend after a bullet killed him at the age of twenty-five, Tupac Shakur was the most riveting rap musician of his day. Far from being the insolent "gangsta" the press put forth, Shakur was fiercely intelligent, fearless, and determined to make a mark. Darrin Bastfield grew up with him in a rough Baltimore neighborhood. In this vivid memoir, Bastfield reveals Tupac Shakur as the teenager he really was: bound for greatness.In tight, edgy prose, Bastfield recalls seven years of friendship. Shakur, new in town, a skinny thirteen-year-old in shabby clothes, may have looked uncool, but he blew the school away at a talent show, an electrifying performance. It was at the Baltimore School for the Arts, however, where things really started to happen-an encounter with Salt-N-Pepa, the wild night of the 1988 senior prom. Shakur and Bastfield lived through it together, and in this memoir, it all comes alive again.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2002

Reviews

[Fahd Elh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a very interesting book to read if you are a genuine Tuoac fan. He exposed one more layer in Tupac's journey, that of his teenage years. It is written on a way that would one think the author was just talking. The things that made it hard to understand a sentence from the first read. I would recommend.

[Joshua Ortiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joshua Ortiz
period.3
10/11/12

Darrin’s The Book Back In The Day : My Life and Times with Tupac Shakur is good true historical rap music and amazing crazy life about tupac. Another thing is that how his best friend darrin introduce him in the book through high school .Also , how they always hang out and that tupac raps and every time they have rap battles after school mostly every day against other rappers that are so young .

The life lesson that the book talk about that how this guy got famous by just rapping and and following what he love to do and his friends supported him with his rapping stlye. The author's style is pretty good from what i read and some parts are pretty funny and it give parts where his life with tupac takes place The character that he talk are true because it”s a life with someone he knew and then lost him so yeah this is true about Tupac Shakur .For example, “ Tupac , through my eyes, at a time in his life when was discovering who he was and what he was capable of becoming. The setting usually takes place in high most of the time or in the studio that they had when tupac met Dr.Dre with Snoop Dogg on occasions. The Plot about this book is how at a young age twenty-five Tupac Shakur was killed by a bullet in the head and he was the most amazing and famous person ever know and rap music that he was good at and for being the insolent “ gangsta” to be know. I can’t compared this book to another one because i don’t know that i can compared this book to , but i can compared to another life about a rapper name Eazy-E another rapper who famous and change the world with music rap and with his homies who called them self N.W.A but only Eazy-E dies though so yea this how crazy most of these two rapper can change the life with just by rapping what’s true about there life and rap music that they do it threw it.Finally i say who ever want to read a good interesting book about a rapper i recommend this one because it actually true and inspiration about what happen with Tupac life.

[Thujetha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful, amusing and neatly written account of Tupac Shakur's mid-teen years at the Baltimore School for the Arts. Darrin Bastfield, an old friend of Tupac and also a former student at the School for the Arts, gives us a perspective, through his memoirs, on a young man who was slowly growing to become what he was destined to be. We come to understand that Tupac lived and breathed rap right from his handwritten compositions at age 14, and even before that, till the bullet hit him and ended his life too soon.
However, if you do not know much about the rap icon, do not start out by reading this book first because "Back in The Day" does not give you a thorough description of the best rapper in the world (in my opinion;)) as a biography normally would do.

Happy reading!

[Sylvia Porter-hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good read. I learned some things about Tupac Shakur that I had no idea about. He was quite and interesting and dynamic individual who had a way of drawing people nearer. He was a gifted poet and performer; both of which earned him world-renowned prestige and respect. This author had a beautiful way of writing about his recollection of time with Tupac Shakur. He gave you a very human and compassionate view while at the same time capturing the rawness of that time. Realism at its best!

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

1st Read: December 4, 2016 - December 9, 2016

I thought this was a pretty good back story on Tupac. It seems honest and from the heart of the author. There were great anecdotes and shared memories from quite a few people who knew him before his success. He stands as the most influential rapper of our time!

[Keith Hall]

It's real.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

just okay. i was hoping for more, and more in depth. but this is just one persons account.

[Carl · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author goes from envious with reverance to a masked jealousy I am not sure even he realizes is present. Nothing learned but a perspective.