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New Tupac Shakur Documentary, Major Published Book And Artwork Will Drop On Kalamint

The NFT Series Around Tupac Shakur

NFTs allow for any digital format to be registered on blockchain and record ownership. We’ve seen the industry grow fast and we’ve already seen some drops by musicians on Tezos platforms like Junkie XL and Doja Cat.  

Other names that have been announced to do NFT drops on Tezos are Quincy Jones, John Legend, TLC and The Estate Of Whitney Houston.

The price range is diverse, some of these NFT’s are sold for as much as 1 XTZ, while others sell for much higher amounts. One of the Doja Cat NFTs sold for $188,888.00. 

In the next few months, an NFT series around the legendary rapper Tupac will become available. The following NFT’s will be dropped:

– The ‘Born Busy’ documentary, covering Tupac’s early days while attending the Baltimore School for the Arts.

Includes interviews with teachers, classmates, and old neighborhood friends give some intimate insights about that period of Tupac’s life and aspirations.

– Several versions of the book ‘Back in the Day: my life and times with Tupac Shakur’ with a new audio excerpt from Bastfield.

The book is a memoir of Tupac’s teenage years, written by Darrin Keith Bastfield, who met Tupac at the Baltimore School for the Arts in 1986. Bastfield and Tupac became close friends and started a rap group during that period called ‘Born Busy’ with Dana Smith, and Gerard Young.

The book will drop in 18 separate chapters, with a new cover for every chapter. The covers will be paired with hand-drawn art on the pages which will be literally cut out of the actual book.

– The cover of ‘Back in the Day: my life and times with Tupac Shakur’, which will replace the initial published cover with Bastfield’s oil painting ‘Shakurspeare’.

“Tupac posed for me as a teenager after sharing his love and aspirations of being a Shakespearean Actor.” -Darrin Keith Basfield

-A First Draft Edition screenplay also titled ‘Shakurspeare’.

A romantic comedy that delves into the controversial world of art, written by Darrin Keith Bastfield.

More details about release dates, the amount of editions, and if and how any rights are attached to a buy of one of these NFT’s will follow later.

There will be a series of pre-drops every week starting next Tuesday until the official launch date of the actual documentary. Expected is that the ‘Born Busy’ documentary will be released in December.

A portion of the proceeds from the sales of the NFT’s will be used to support art initiatives and programs that actively fosters art and culture to youth in urban communities.

Next Tuesday, Sep 28 at 7:00 PM EDT, Darrin will host a Clubhouse event here, where he will discuss Born Busy.

Users will be able to collect a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocols) NFT for free. “DJ Booman will be working with me and adding the musical background to the event.”

There is a Clubhouse event planned every week, in which Bastfield will take out a page of the book “Back in the Day: my life and times with Tupac Shakur”, on which he will create live art, with feedback from the people that attend the Clubhouse event.

This page will be an NFT that will accompany a cover of the chapter of the book that will be released that week as NFT on Kalamint.

Darrin Keith Bastfield

The NFTs are minted by Darrin Keith Bastfield, early friend of Tupac and member of the Baltimore rap group that Tupac was a part of: ‘Born Busy’, Bastfield completely owns the rights to the material that will be used for the NFT’s.

He is the writer of the book ‘Back in the Day: my life and times with Tupac Shakur’ first published as a hardcover in 2002 by Random House/One World/Ballantine and then as a Paperback in 2003.

Darrin is also the creator, Producer, and Director of the documentary ‘Born Busy.’ Bastfield is also co-owner of a series of unreleased Tupac recordings that were created while he was part of the rap group “Born Busy”.

These are the first-ever recorded tracks of Tupac rapping. Perhaps someday those recordings will be officially released.

Darrin Keith Bastfield is a talented artist in many disciplines. After the Tupac-related NFT series, you will be seeing more art of him dropped in later NFT series.

Bastfield and Tupac met at the Baltimore School for the Arts in 1986. They became close friends and eventually started a rap group called Born Busy. Darrin tells how he and Tupac got introduced and became close friends:

Tupac and I met at the Baltimore School for the Arts in 1986. We would see each other in passing and would speak especially soon after I found out that he loved to rap from mutual classmates, just like I did. Tupac was an underclassmen and new to the school so he was not yet known at that time.

He also heard about me rapping along with my other friends who were all upperclassmen. One day after school Tupac sees me and another friend standing out in front of the school talking and just interrupts us and asked me if I want to battle.

He was so cocky that my immediate  response was ”Yeah”, and then in my mind seconds later was “Who are you again..what type of battle are you talking about?” It happened so fast.

Well, we battled at the school during a yearly Beaux Arts Ball event and Tupac and his then unknown friend Dana won the battle against three of us.

After that battle I was very impressed. It was obvious that they rehearsed a great deal and came prepared. Others who were with me were a bit sour and would downplay Tupac’s  battle performance. Not me. I gave credit where credit was due, however that summer all I would think about was a rematch.

One day I was walking to the lunch room and I heard a bunch of beats made on lockers inside the boys locker room. I go in and it’s Tupac with a few other theatre students and Tupac’s looks over to me and says “Darrin, kick a rhyme!” I jumped right in.

This was the ice breaking moment between Tupac and I. After that moment when we would see each other in the school hallways, he would always ask me if I wrote any new rhymes and vice versa. We begin building a friendship.

Then one day, a group of about 8 guys came down to the Baltimore School for the Arts after school to fight Tupac. As we later found out this was all over a girl.

Me and my other friends stood with Tupac and really had his back during that altercation. Because I knew that there was a chance that the guys would try to catch him going home after leaving the school, I went home with him as he lived on the opposite side of town.

I didn’t want anyone to catch him alone. I took the bus with him all the way to his home on the Northeast side of Baltimore.

I met his mother as he introduced me and told her (Afeni Shakur) that I had his back. She immediately thanked me and would have a talk with both of us. From that day on we spent a lot of time hanging together and even got jobs working at the same restaurant as busboys.

We then formed a rap group called ‘Born Busy.’ All we did was write raps and when we decided to form the group we had to come up with a name. I came up with Born Busy and we started writing songs with the ‘Born Busy’ name in the songs.

Our first song together is called ‘Check it Out.’ We wrote a total of 8 songs together and recorded them. They have never been officially released.

Follow Darrin Bastfield on Twitter https://twitter.com/BecomeAPatron 

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