Hip Hop x Basketball -- 2: Acknowledgement and Acceptance
2:
Acknowledgement and Acceptance
With a mind fully
focused on the facts that basketball remains a sport that requires VERY little
to get into as far as resources, and hip hop a musical medium that (at the
time) required little in the way of classical musical training, it seems only
natural that kids from lower-rent areas would be into either, or even both of
the two simultaneously. The connection
between participants of the two is more than natural.
What could not be
assumed was that either would be accepted as continuingly viable forms of
entertainment or even recreational activities.
For what they were and the relative obscurity from whence they came,
they would surely be a hard sell to say the least.
With that in mind, it is (or was) only fair that both would initially cultivate and grow in areas with less-than-affluent populations and grow from there up, sometimes (or often) moving those less-than-affluent on to greener pastures for their troubles. One could refer to it as “the way out.” Legendary street ball parks can be found all around the US; but seemingly most especially in Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles are remembered just as vividly by current and former NBA stars as they are hip hop artists who happened to grow up near them. While understandably coincidental, this remains far from surprising. When something builds such a grassroots following, it is only natural that it becomes difficult to ignore. What comes next is the acknowledgment as commercially viable, and that is when the people with the deep pockets and check books come alive and look to get on the gravy train. The fact that either hip hop or basketball went on for such short periods of time (basketball was a demonstration sport as quickly as the 1904 Olympics and rap acts were getting record deals by 1979) is particularly surprising.
With that in mind, it is (or was) only fair that both would initially cultivate and grow in areas with less-than-affluent populations and grow from there up, sometimes (or often) moving those less-than-affluent on to greener pastures for their troubles. One could refer to it as “the way out.” Legendary street ball parks can be found all around the US; but seemingly most especially in Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles are remembered just as vividly by current and former NBA stars as they are hip hop artists who happened to grow up near them. While understandably coincidental, this remains far from surprising. When something builds such a grassroots following, it is only natural that it becomes difficult to ignore. What comes next is the acknowledgment as commercially viable, and that is when the people with the deep pockets and check books come alive and look to get on the gravy train. The fact that either hip hop or basketball went on for such short periods of time (basketball was a demonstration sport as quickly as the 1904 Olympics and rap acts were getting record deals by 1979) is particularly surprising.
What also shouldn’t come as a
surprise is how little time it took for hip hop in general to acknowledge
basketball. Again, giving everything to
recognition of people who happen to look like you who are doing the things you
might have wanted to do under a different set of circumstances means a great
much.
Steven Wiley’s “Basketball,” performed by Kurtis Blow on his 1984 album Ego Trip is accepted as the first hip hop song acknowledging the sport, and to this day is hailed as one of the best, a benchmark on the subject in the genre. The gamut from there has been everything from embarrassing to downright silly. What we see more often than not has become a few-lines-long reference or nod to a player, team or organization in a rap song instead of a whole song but it has never been without question that one side has been paying attention to the other with a mind quite obviously exuding a mutual respect from one side to the other.
Steven Wiley’s “Basketball,” performed by Kurtis Blow on his 1984 album Ego Trip is accepted as the first hip hop song acknowledging the sport, and to this day is hailed as one of the best, a benchmark on the subject in the genre. The gamut from there has been everything from embarrassing to downright silly. What we see more often than not has become a few-lines-long reference or nod to a player, team or organization in a rap song instead of a whole song but it has never been without question that one side has been paying attention to the other with a mind quite obviously exuding a mutual respect from one side to the other.
In the years that
followed, it was common to see basketball as the predominantly-represented
sport in hip hop or “urban” music videos, often with the involvement of professional
basketball stars at that. Consideration
can be given to the spillover into R&B and pop musical mediums as well. No one will ever forget Michael Jackson’s 1992
single “Jam” (featuring Heavy D. as well if we’re in need of a connection to
hip hop), or its video in which he taught then-rising-legend Michael Jordan how
to dance and in turn MJ taught him to play basketball.
Beyond that, Shaquille
O’Neal was and has remained a regular occurrence in rap videos - and not
necessarily his own. The remainder of
involved parties shown in videos or generally connected to the community
through the years is nearly innumerable, cementing that VERY early on, hip hop
and basketball were to be inseparable entities and that the relationship was
consensual.
Heltah Skeltah
released two songs in 1995 to this effect when their single “Operation
Lockdown” and B-Side to another single, named “Leflaur Leflah Eshkoshkah”
(which took legs enough to become a single on its own, even getting a video
release), featuring O.G.C. played out as a 5:03-long
rap-group-as-a-basketball-team metaphor, right down to the use of the name “Fab
5” for the assembly of the two groups into one super group. Each song would
serve as the groups’ highest-charting singles to date.
Later we would see Joe Budden, with Paul Cain and Fabolous hint at a group release that never materialized on any commercial release named “The Triangle Offense,” thusly named for the offensive scheme masterminded by Bulls/Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson’s assistant Tex Winter. Noteworthy in the use is that the Triangle Offense in itself had led directly to a nearly-indefensible scheme that had earned Jackson three separate instances of three-straight NBA championships. Again, the group never materialized into anything more than a DJ Clue-hosted mix tape at the time, but the fact remains that informed attention was being paid from somewhere that mattered.
Later we would see Joe Budden, with Paul Cain and Fabolous hint at a group release that never materialized on any commercial release named “The Triangle Offense,” thusly named for the offensive scheme masterminded by Bulls/Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson’s assistant Tex Winter. Noteworthy in the use is that the Triangle Offense in itself had led directly to a nearly-indefensible scheme that had earned Jackson three separate instances of three-straight NBA championships. Again, the group never materialized into anything more than a DJ Clue-hosted mix tape at the time, but the fact remains that informed attention was being paid from somewhere that mattered.
In the name of
commercial viability – the only kind that lends any legitimate longevity, it
seem – the acknowledgment of the two by the general populace was more important
than acknowledgment one another. It was
at this point that each seemed realize a goal of perhaps being more about not
being exclusively acknowledged by smaller groups and instead go for a global
audience. If hip hop’s “money machine”
days began with the 1983/84 establishment of Def Jam and the NBA’s major shift
in popularity can be traced to David Stern’s 1984 ascension to the role of
commissioner, no surprise is left as to the time-related connection between
their mediums. As ever, no INTENTIONS
were made to have the two grow together so closely at least not at initial
conceptions. At the time, basketball
players were yet already world-class athletes and rappers were still
street-corner thugs and drug dealers.
Involving a level of profitability and changing of opportunities,
though, gave those “street-corner thugs” opportunities once only possessed for
those with opportunities to get off of that corner (i.e. participation in sports,
uninhibited education access, etc…) and all of a sudden we as the buying public
HAD to notice that the guy who could dunk from the free-throw line was from the
same neighborhood the guy making his own way rapping about the crack he sold
was talking about.
With a simple connection
made, there should be no issue with getting the participants themselves to
acknowledge one another, but it would take the complicit involvement of those
participants to get us ALL on board.
Everyone remembers the as-depicted (and usually accurately so) high
school movies. There was the “jocks,”
lent a sense of being by being athletically gifted. Then there was the “nerds,” who never
actually needed that coronation because they would be the ones to make their
own way academically, social awkwardness notwithstanding of course. The last group – who we rarely saw in these
movies – would be the lower class. The
kids who dared need to ride a bus to school, the ones who ate their lunches in
the school cafeteria at prices subsidized by the state, the ones who stood in a
circle outside that same cafeteria while one kid fashioned a rhythm while
everyone else took turns rapping to it.
Simple mathematics serves it that most of them would go on to work
regular jobs if any at all, but one of them would take that rapping
somewhere. While he got no camera time
in our described high school movie, or only the nerds knew his name in our
actual high school because they needed to in case he beat them up, there would
come a time where he must be acknowledged, because he will become Jay-Z, he will
grow up and will be Chris Lighty, or anyone else who went on to extreme levels
of success with no education to stand behind it.
The point here is the
gaining of acknowledgment them all, as the simple fact remains that sometimes
those in need of an opportunity come dressed in a pressed-and-tucked polo and
khakis, some in sports gear, while others still come dressed in the jeans and
sneakers. Time would, has, and will
continue to show this to be absolute.
At this juncture, we
can see where and why basketball and hip hop have become tied together. At this point in time, we see that most
parties are accepting of this or are at least on board with it. The elaborate introduction montages,
during-breaks-in-action music used, and the fact that all families of networks
that televise NBA games nationally (Turner/NBA TV and ESPN/ABC, respectively)
have involved hip hop music DEEPLY into their presentations – usually the “back
from commercial” spots to the point where TNT employs an “official” Playoffs
song every spring for that purpose is more than indicative that either the
check writers get it, or trust the people who do get it well enough to let them
make some of the decisions, at least as long as those decisions resulted in
profitable projects.
Forget not that –
deterioration of personal relationships notwithstanding of course – people who
feel they really actually know one another well should have no issue partnering
to take themselves to great places, even if that partnership is only implied
born of an otherwise “normal” connection.
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