Hip Hop x Basketball -- Introduction

     Allow me a moment to explain what it is we’re about to embark on…

Back in May, I had this idea that I would write a book that would detail the connected histories of Hip Hop and Professional Basketball.  In June I got married, then had the week leading up to my birthday off of work.  In that time, I got a lot of work done on it, but it was not shaping up to be voluminous to be worth attempting to pursue a whole book’s worth of writing on.  As of the date that I type this (10/15/2012), I was a hair over 10,000 words into the project and running out of steam enough to carry it any further.  I mean that to say that I was almost “done,” and would need an amount of input up to about four times the amount of words I had put into it.

     Given the length of what I DID have, though, I would not be willing to let it go to waste, and that is what brings me here today.  Instead of a book, I will publish the presentation as a series of blogs to be posted every Tuesday until I have exhausted the whole of my work.  This goes right in line with the beginning of the NBA season, scheduled to begin Thursday November 1.

With all the explanation out of the way, I will offer the already-written intro to complete this post.

Intro

     One sure thing is that very few people doubt the connection between professional Basketball and hip hop music.  One may, however, argue or contend that the two were made and cultivated with the same target audience in mind.  What has not come up for discussion is precisely why, how and just how deeply connected the two may be or consideration of the fact that it just simply was not always like that.  That would be what we’re here to discuss, assessing similarities in beginnings, (semi) parallel upbringings and connected histories and futures.

     From fundamentally similar (albeit nearly completely oppositely-intended) beginnings, to coincidentally connected upbringings, up through absolutely connected blossoming periods and on to the greenest of green pastures – all taken at right around the same time.