Miami Heat disc jockey M. Dot has a front row seat to the harmonious marriage of basketball and music from his booth in the corner of the court.
M Dot (real name Michael Hankerson) has seen LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler nodding along to songs by artists like Drake and Jeezy in the pregame layup line. He's seen fans tweeting song lyrics between cheers and rap artists pumping up the crowd during timeouts.
The relationship began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when hip-hop was on the rise and a new era for the NBA ushered in.
Today, basketball games are like a sonic playground for hip-hop, an unmistakable musical genre infused with rhythmic beats and vivid storytelling.
In the same way that movie soundtracks help viewers follow the action of a story through each plot twist, hip-hop has done the same for basketball through the NBA. Over the past 50 years, the genre has incorporated lyrics, beats, and culture into the DNA of the sport. As hip-hop celebrates his 50th anniversary, the two are intertwined like a colorful ball of yarn.
“Hip-hop has always been young, fresh and accessible,” Mdot said. “If you go to an NBA game, I'd say that's probably a third of the music that's being played.”
Other sports have certainly been influenced by hip-hop culture for decades. However, their affinity for basketball has always been different due to the nature of sharing the same playground as the musical genre's birthplace.
“I think the relationship between basketball and hip-hop is symbiotic. Both allow for individual expression within a team dynamic,” said Mark Campbell, professor of music culture at the University of Toronto. “What makes them unique is that a lot of times what's memorable in basketball isn't how many wins the team won, it's how Dr. J (Julius Erving) circled the rim or how individual It's about how athletes create poetry in their movements…how they get their bodies to do interesting, dynamic, new things. ”
Many hip-hop artists and basketball players have followed similar brood-to-riches paths, creating a natural brotherhood on and off the court.
Remnants of that connection have roots in the genre's infancy. The Sugar Hill Gang's “Rapper's Delight,” the first rap song to appear on Billboard's Hot 100, was released in 1979 when Big Bank Hank wrote, “So after school, we're going to take a dip in the pool. It's actually above the pool.” “That’s it,” he raps, linking hardwood and a drum machine. He has a color TV on the wall so you can watch Knicks basketball games. ”
Curtis Blow did it again in 1984 with “Basketball.” It's a lyrical ode to the sport and another of rap's early commercial successes.
“Basketball, after the NBA's merger with the ABA until the mid-'80s, has struggled to become a profitable professional sport,” Campbell said. “What we really needed was someone like[Michael]Jordan swaggering to the local b-boys in the neighborhood, swaggering to whoever was hanging out outside, or the swaggering look of Rakim and those guys. It was a stage where cable television allowed people to see things that they couldn't see outside of their home area. ”
It was the beginning of a connection that would last for decades.
Hip-hop was born in the Bronx, rising from the ashes of a neighborhood plagued by poverty, urban decay, and gang violence. Fifty years later, the industry is a multibillion-dollar global industry, but the Bronx has yet to reap the benefits. (August 9) (AP Video/Noreen Nasir)
Michigan's “Fab Five” were college basketball's first hip-hop team, bursting onto the scene in 1991, the same year Public Enemy became the first hip-hop group to top the Billboard charts.
From baggy shorts to black socks and shoes, the University of Michigan's five freshmen Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Jimmy King, Juwan Howard and Ray Jackson show off their toned-down college style. He brought polar opposite personalities to the game. The players that came before them.
Bringing elements of hip-hop culture into the courtroom was intentional, King said.
“Most basketball players want to be entertainers, and most entertainers want to be athletes. So we look out for each other,” King said. “I think we use the hip-hop genre of music to get us pumped up for the game, to lift our spirits, to keep us motivated. I think it's kind of a close relationship.”
While most teams break the huddle with phrases like “Let's go team!”, King said the Michigan team used a not-so-subtle phrase borrowed from the Geto Boys' 1991 album “We Can't Be Stopped.” He recalled that it ended with a line that was not.
Dr. King said this was evidence of the clash of cultures that they proudly represented.
“That was our brand. That was our style,” he said. “The idle talk and the celebrations were just an extension.”
That legacy continued with Allen Iverson, who entered the NBA in 1996 and embodied hip-hop culture in everything he did, from his clothes to his corn rack.
The stars' embrace of hip-hop in a way never seen before gave the NBA pause and raised concerns in some circles about the league's more conservative corporate sponsors. Former league commissioner David Stern even instituted a dress code for players to sit on the bench in street clothes.
But there was more to it than meets the eye, and the Hip Hop/NBA seeding was entrenched.
Iverson's time in the league helped cement an era of NBA players who went beyond just leisurely consuming hip-hop and hanging out with the stars to actually producing their own music. .
Iverson, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Marcus Smart, Damian Lillard and many more have actual hip-hop albums.
Lillard, a seven-time All-Star, is known in the studio for his rap persona, Dame Dolla. Having released four of his albums, he frequently showcases his lyrical talent on social media. When a snowstorm left him and his Portland Trail Blazers teammates stuck on the tarmac for more than seven hours last season, he used the downtime to write a short poem about the ordeal. impromptu music video shooting.
The relationship between the two worlds remains clear.
Drake and J Cole are just one pair of famous hip-hop artists who are heavily involved with NBA teams. Drake has been a global ambassador for his hometown team, the Toronto Raptors, since 2013, and can often be seen interacting with coaches and players on the sidelines. Cole played on his high school basketball team when Michael Jordan became a minority owner of the Charlotte Hornets. sold his majority ownership In June.
When popular Los Angeles rap artist Nipsey Hussle passed away in 2019, NBA teams and players paid tribute to him.clippers I displayed a jersey with my name on it. Moreover. Stars like Stephen Curry, who developed a friendship with Hussle, paid tribute to him on social media and at press conferences.
This highlights how hip-hop has used the NBA to leapfrog its urban origins and reach every corner of the country.
Once ridiculed by mainstream America, the words and contributions of hip-hop artists now influence the masses.
Jay-Z not only bought a minority stake in the Brooklyn Nets, he also designed their uniforms. When NBA players, shaken by racial injustice and the shooting death of a Black man in Wisconsin, walked out in the league's pandemic bubble in 2020, it echoed the anxiety that was pulsating through hip-hop music at the time. It was a physical manifestation.
“You can't overestimate the influence of hip-hop culture,” Campbell says. “This suggests that if the NBA doesn't become a home for the excesses of style that are part of black culture and urban culture, someone else will capitalize on it. Fashion brands, dance, these things. All factors equally influence how basketball makes money. It's about trying to be cool in a way.”
___
APNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
___
Follow Alanis Thames on Twitter. http://www.twitter.com/alanisthames
___
Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter. http://www.twitter.com/khightower
