A star during his lifetime, a legend after a bullet killed him at the age of 25, Shakur was the most influential rap musician of his day. This is an eyewitness account of his formative years, written by his close friend from high school.
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.