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

A One World Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright 2002 by Darrin Keith Bastfield

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

One World is a registered trademark and the One World colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com/one/

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request from the publisher.

eISBN: 978-0-307-83115-6

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You paved these streets leaving intense memories of footprints

With every stride on ground you traveled in hope to avoid nonsense

Your energy rang a perfect pitch holding aside your wounds life
bitched

Then noted your lessons of preparation from those cuts unstitched

Was it a coincidence? I asked. Your foretelling words were kept

Not arbitrarily, once realized your words and destiny soon met

You knew that fate would not have waited through its total control

So no fear of death strengthened you whole to be willing and able
to let go

This testament I write embraces words of my truest intent

To shed pure light and cast a shadow on ones laced with false pretense

I strongly feel that youre with us as part of your path I tell

At last, you yelled your struggle, and gave us guide of how ones
soul propels

BY DARRIN KEITH BASTFIELD

I honestly didnt care whether I lived or died.
But now I cannot die with people thinkin Im a rapist or a criminal.
I cant leave til this shit is straight.
Im not suicidal; I cant go til yall know what time it is.

TUPAC AMARU SHAKUR
MTV INTERVIEW , 1995

When Tupac was asked as a young boy, What do you want to be when you grow up? his reply was, a revolutionary. This piece of research I found particularly interesting among all else that I learned and remembered about him in my journey back in time because, in fact, Tupac was a revolutionary. He was an exceptional young man who saw a dire need for change, and he worked for this change with every breath that he took. Tupacs way was a provocative one. Forget all the nicety; he was as blunt as they come, and as bold. We often forget exactly how young he was, and the effect this would have on his approach to life. I believe Tupac was transitioning into a new, more sophisticated phase of his lifelong plan to bring about the above-mentioned change when, tragically, he was stopped short.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Im quite sure everyone remembers being asked at some point in their childhood. For most, a revolutionary was probably not among the list of possible responses. But Tupac was not like most. This little tale from Tupacs early childhood also struck me because I too had an unusual answer to this common childhood question; in fact it is the source of one of my earliest memories.

When I was four years old, in pre-k, the teacher was going around the circle of students seated on the carpet in the middle of the room. I remember many of the kids reciting the inevitable top three, a fireman a policeman a doctor. It was strange because I knew what they were going to say before they said it. I remember sitting on the floor, looking into their unsure faces as they took their turn, while I contemplated whether I should also say, fireman policeman doctor. I knew it would sound right if I did. And I all but convinced myself to do so as the teachers gaze neared. Sure, I could say what was in my heart, but why be the outcast, the strange one, when this was so easily and harmlessly avoidable? Only six kids left and no one ventured the answer that was bouncing around in my head. No, Im just going to be like everybody else, I nervously decided as my turn approached. Then the kid directly before me admitted, I dont know, smiling, like it was some kind of joke, or game.

What do you mean, you dont know?! Youre in pre-k for Gods sake! Get some direction in your life, you bum. Everybody else in here knows what they want to be! All these things raced through my thoughts, along with: Thank you, now Im not going to be the odd one after all. My answer would be much better than his.

I want to be a drawer, I proclaimed confidently when the teachers eyes met mine. Most of the kids understood my answer. I was speaking in our language. Drawing was the usual pre-nap activity.

No, Darrin, you mean artist, right? the teacher suggested gently.

No, drawer, was my steadfast reply. I had no idea what an artist was, and I didnt care. I just knew that I had a passion bigger than that of any other kid or adult I had ever met in my four years of life. As a child, I spent a great deal of time observing things, objects, people, and places. And I felt a burning need to record what I saw. The view out of my bedroom window, for instance, was of great importance to meit was me, it was what I woke up to and went to sleep to everyday, so I drew a picture to show people, and always kept it folded in my pocket just in case.

My first drawing I remember clearly; it was of Fred Flintstone. I remember sitting in front of the television by myself studying him, trying to draw him exactly the way I saw him on the screen. Diligently, I watched day after day, paying close attention to the most minute details. I didnt want to miss a single thing. Every episode provided a new piece to the drawing, which I revisited for many days until I was satisfied. I knew it was good when people doubted that I was the true creator of the impressive replica. Most people I showed it to, mainly other children, thought I had traced it. That is, until I drew another, almost equally impressive rendering of Fred from memory, right in front of their faces. I had soaked him in. He was a part of my memory, ready and waiting to be regurgitated as often as I chose. And this was what everyone wanted! This elicited from them that response that was like food to my soul. From that point on I knew what I had to do: no big desire to change the world, no grand vision, just doing what came naturally, what made people want to take a minute of their time to look at the products of my hands, and the fruits of my mind.

I didnt know why I had this desire to observe and to draw. It just felt right. It wasnt until fourteen years later when I met my biological father and discovered that he too had this same passion, this same talent, that I understood. I had floated, unconsciously, purposelessly, through the gifted and talented program of my elementary school, the Baltimore School for the Arts, local and national art competitions, and a year at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Nothing had had any real meaning to me until I met my father. Now I know why it is important for me to draw pictures. It is a part of me. It is the reason why I simply had to take on this project.

Tupac was a genuinely intriguing subject on which I focused my sharpest attention from before our first encounter, and certainly afterward. We were alike in some ways, but in many more we were very different. Tupac was exceptional, on a grand scale, and I knew it. I watched him out of curiosity, but also in hope of borrowing some of whatever it was behind his strength, his drive, his propensity to excel in whatever direction he set his sights. Indeed, I watched him very closely. And upon his death, it became clear to me that it was time to draw the picture.