This was the sentence that inspired this whole post. Hip-hop
and basketball is a perfect marriage and it’s no coincidence that both exploded
to mainstream relevance around the same time. Some players such as Allen
Iverson and the Fab Five brought the edge, attitude, and fashion of rap music to
the court while MC’s brought the competitiveness of the playground to the mic.
Whether it’s tattoos, hairstyles, or mannerisms, hip-hop and basketball are
intersecting cultures that are frequently influencing one another. One day it’s
New Orleans rapper Master P making an NBA roster, the next it’s Damian Lillard
setting flames on Sway in the Morning. Rap and basketball will always be one in
the same, which is why it should be no surprise that there are players in the
league that have enjoyed careers similar to some of rap’s most prevalent
figures. When you look at it, you realize that…
Dwight Howard is Lil Wayne
From like 2007-2009, Lil Wayne was a rap demi-god. He seemed
almost superhuman, appearing on seemingly every hit radio single while producing
mixtapes at an unreal pace. Fueled by copious amounts of lean and weed, Weezy
embraced a free association style that allowed him to redefine the term “wordplay”.
Every verse was like a personal assault on the English language. His run atop
of the rap game is truly unprecedented.
Much like Lil Wayne, Dwight Howard began his career as a
child prodigy, chosen number 1 overall fresh out of high school. After a couple
of seasons, Howard was able to combine a Marvel-esque physique with freakish
athleticism to be crowned the best big man in basketball, similarly to how
Wayne was proclaimed the best rapper alive.
.jpg)
A lot has changed since then. For starters, both experienced
setbacks that turned these superhumans back into mortals (back surgery for
Howard and a little thing called prison for Lil Wayne). While we occasionally hear
Weezy spaz on a track, or see Howard slap up a 20-20 during the playoffs, it’s
evident that these guys are not the same as they used to be. Some of this is
attributed to alleged personality traits that hold them back. In Dwight’s case,
people started questioning his will to win and his commitment to the game of
basketball. For Wayne, it was his alarming dependency on substances, which is
inadvertently the focus of the fascinating documentary Tha Carter.
Whether being physically removed from their professions or
their personalities derailing their limitless ascensions, it can’t be ignored
that the game has changed for both of them. In Howard’s case, the game is
rapidly moving towards the perimeter, where the most dominate players on the
floor are guards and swingmen. The need for a post player with very limited
range and mediocre passing abilities is nearly non-existent. For Lil Wayne,
mainstream hip-hop returned to the narrative driven style from the early 90’s. While Wayne has found refuge in the “trap music”
genre of rap, his “punchline” rapping style seems almost childish compared to what
the up and coming rappers are producing, including his label-mate, Drake. Like
I said, there are moments where we’re reminded how good these guys once were, but their
peak definitely belongs to the 2007-2010 era.
Tim Duncan is Nas
You know what the problem is with being consistent? After a
while you get labeled as boring and it takes something truly spectacular to garner
attention, despite the fact you’re constantly cranking out excellence. In
hip-hop and in basketball, no one has maintained an exceptional level of
consistency over a long period of time like Tim Duncan and Nas. In 1994, the
world was introduced to a 19 year old MC from Queensbridge, New York and arguably
the greatest hip-hop album of all time, Illmatic.
Three years later, the San Antonio Spurs drafted arguably the greatest power
forward of all time in Tim Duncan. For those that aren’t great at math, that’s
two decades worth of waking up in the morning and pissing excellence (OK, 18
years in Duncan’s case but still).
In that span, Duncan has racked up five championships, three
Finals MVPs, two regular season MVPs, and 10 First team All-NBA selections (15
total!). Meanwhile, Nas has released ten solo albums (7 reached platinum
certification), three collaboration albums (The
Firm: The Album achieved platinum), and a few side projects such as The Lost Tapes and the controversially
titled, The Nigger Tape. Despite
their accolades, Nas and Duncan are in a unique class of greatness. Throughout
their careers, they’ve been overshadowed by their flashier rivals. This led to
a sentiment that only the hardcore fans or the “purists” could appreciate them.
And in a sense, that is true. What makes Duncan and Nas special is their
attention to detail and dedication to the fundamentals. The same way Duncan
fluidly maneuvered his feet and nailed bank shots, Nas blended the grittiness
of the street with intellectual poetry. If you are the type of fan looking for
dunks and club music, these guys probably weren’t for you.
Kobe Bryant is Jay-Z
I feel like I’m almost cheating with this one because the parallels
are almost too easy. For starters, both Hov and the Mamba debuted in 1996 and
have dominated headlines ever since. When it comes to style, finesse,
arrogance, competiveness, and a nearly offensive excess of wealth, there are
few like Kobe and Jay. Obviously, both of these guys are going to be regarded
as some of the greatest to ever lace the mic or sneakers. But when it comes to
an evaluation of their legacies, there’s three types of people that make the
following arguments: A) He is my favorite and therefore the greatest of all
time! B) Great resume but far from perfect and definitely not the best. C) Vastly
overrated and a cheap imitation of his predecessor.
Group C fascinates me mostly because there’s a similarity
between Jordan and the Notorious Big that does hurt Kobe and Jay’s legacy: they
both left something on the table and let our imaginations form the rest of the
narrative. Jordan left basketball at the absolute peak of his powers in 1993,
only to return towards the end of the 1995 season. Many argue that the Houston
Rockets would not have won those two titles in his absence and that MJ could be
looking at possibly 8 straight championships (the counterargument here is that Jordan
desperately needed his baseball sabbatical for numerous reasons and without
that there’s a chance he wouldn’t have had enough in the tank for the second
three peat). And of course, Biggie fucking died before his second album was
even released. While there’s questions of what could have been, there is
nothing left to wonder with Jay and Kobe because they’ve already done everything. There’s very little they could do
that would surprise any of us. And because of this, group B is the most on
point because we can see the whole resume. Had they retired when the public expected them to (after the Black Album/ after Kobe's torn Achilles) then their legacies would be held in even higher regard.
Steph Curry is Kendrick Lamar
If I had to describe both of these cats in one word it would
be “combustible”. These two humans embody the ever present threat of
transforming into supernovas and destroying everything in sight. Whether it’s
hitting shots from anywhere on the court or hijacking the song with a guest
verse, no one can heat up faster than Kendrick Lamar and Steph Curry. What’s
dope about watching/ listening to these two is you can sense when they are
about to capture the moment. Kendrick has that young Eminem ability to shift
gears throughout a song, and as he crescendos into his fifth gear you can’t help
but metaphorically buckle up. In Steph’s case, much like Kendrick, it seems
that his greatest moments occur when he is tiptoeing the line between “mind-bending-genius”
and “about-to-fly-off-the-rails-recklessness”. Seriously, right when it seems
like Steph has reached the point of being completely out of control, he somehow
reels it in to achieve an incredible feat.
Like everyone else on this list, their main similarity is
where they rank in their respective fields. And really what I mean by that is
the subjective nature of determining this. While a lot of people want to
declare them the best at what they do, there is something that is holding us
back from making that definitive. I’m not sure what that is entirely but if I
had to guess, it’s the sense that we feel they still have something to prove. Sure,
Curry was the MVP and champion this season, and Good Kid M.A.A.D City is a legitimate
hip-hop classic, but for some reason we feel that we need to see more out of
them, especially since the kings of their fields are still active and lurking
(we’ll get to them).
I think the best way to classify these two is the best right now, which is in no way a sign of
disrespect. Like I said earlier, there’s genuine excitement generated as soon
as they step on the mic/ court. Maybe Steph will explode for 50 points, maybe
Kendrick will pull another Control verse
out of his ass, who knows! That’s what makes these dudes captivating, at any
given moment they can be the undisputed best. However, how many of these
moments does it take to become the king of their industries?
James Harden is Drake
Let’s get the obvious differences out of the way: When it
comes to beard strength, Harden easily beats Drake. When it comes to winning
beefs against rappers, Drizzy has had much better luck (Harden lost to Lil B
for Christ sake). In a situation where they are both in a layup line, Harden
would definitely fare better than the artist formerly known as Jimmy.
Outside of that, these guys share plenty in common, to the
point where this was the first comparison I thought of. Outside of their mutual
appreciation for strippers, both Harden and Drake have risen to the top of
their respective game. Both started gaining notoriety around 2009-2010 when
Harden was selected third overall in the 2009 draft and Drake dropped the
mixtape So Far Gone. Playing in the
shadows of stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook—and to a lesser extent,
Serge Ibaka—Harden still managed to shine as an assassin off the bench, winning
Sixth Man of the Year in 2012. During that same stretch, Drake started rising
through the ranks of Young Money Cash Money, but was mostly an afterthought
after megastar Lil Wayne, CEO and professional hand-rubber Birdman, and fellow
rising star Nicki Minaj.
As we all know, Harden was infamously traded to the Houston
Rockets, which resulted in him skyrocketing overnight into the MVP
conversation. For Drizzy, it was almost destiny. After Lil Wayne went to prison
and Kanye did his absolute best to burn every bridge with the public, there was
a noticeable void in rap and Drake, to his credit, exploited the fuck out of
it. But he wasn’t the only one that took advantage of a changing landscape.
If I absolutely had to boil down the similarities between
Drake and James Harden, it’s this: They are both at the top of their profession
despite being the most polarizing individuals in their arena. In this case, polarizing
is a polite way of saying annoying as fuck. In Harden’s case, it’s his
maddeningly efficient hybrid-Eurostep move that draws fouls at a rate that
could drive a man to drink. For Drake it’s, umm, shit, why didn’t we like Drake
again? Was it the light-skinned thing? Because he’s Canadian? Because he smiles
entirely way too much?
Oh, right! It’s because he was, to use his own words in Back
2 Back, “a singing nigga”. Drake wasn’t seen as a real rapper because a lot of
his tracks, especially from the Take Care
days, are more r&b influenced, which is a nice way of saying soft. Much
like how people thought his singing negated his rap abilities, many dismissed
Harden as a legitimate superstar because he “flopped” his way to the free-throw
line time and time again. But here’s the thing, to bring the point full circle,
these two dudes are maddeningly annoying to only the older generation of fans that use standards from their eras to
define greatness. The reasons why they get on our nerves is also the reason why
they are extremely successful. Really these guys are just ahead of their time
and more and more people are starting to model their success after their blueprint.
The NBA has a boner for hyper-efficient players that shoot only threes,
layups, and free-throws, and no one is better at that trifecta than Harden. If
you turn on your radio, it seems like every rap song, even goddamn trap music,
is mostly singing. Hell, a great example of this is Big Sean’s album Dark Sky Paradise, which is an album
that I thoroughly enjoyed, but if you take a closer listen, you realize it
sounds exactly like a Drake album. While these guys are on the inside track to
become the best, that simply isn’t the case right now.
LeBron James is Kanye West
Despite what was said about Harden/Curry/ Drake/ Kendrick,
all roads still go through LeBron James and Kanye West. If you don’t believe
that these guys aren’t at the tippy top of their industries then you’re either
a hater or delusional. To prove my point, let’s run through a checklist of what
it takes to be considered the best:
·
Are you the one of the most popular individuals
yet simultaneously despised for little to no reason?
·
Does everyone in the industry want to work with
you?
·
Do you selflessly make underqualified
individuals look much, much better?
·
Are you a global icon and a walking brand?
·
Do you routinely break records?
·
When performing at 75% are you still better than
basically everyone else? When you do go 100% is it even disputable that you’re
the best?
·
Does your resume carry significant weight when
viewed in a historical context?
Ye and Bron nail all of these. Besides maybe Dr. Dre, no
producer is more sought after than Kanye West. Rappers like Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz,
Big Sean, Kid Cudi, and even Hov, all leap to another level when they jump on a
Kanye track. And contrary to popular belief, Kanye is usually gracious enough
to take a backseat to make those individuals look better than him on the track.
LeBron’s track record for turning scrubs into NBA Finals participants is
Jordan-esque. I mean, he got the national media to talk exhaustively about
fucking Matthew Dellavedova! That’s amazing. Because of this, LeBron is the
player everyone wants to play with in the NBA. And like Yeezy, he’s more than
willing to let his teammates eat. But when these two decide to flip the switch
and remind people how good they are, they transform into once in a lifetime
talents. When talking about the NBA or hip-hop in a historical context, there’s
absolutely no way you can leave these guys out.
Even the narratives line up. They both came into the game
when their slightly older contemporaries were in full control of the game
(Jay-Z and Kobe) and immediately rose to prominence after their rookie efforts
dropped (College Dropout/ LeBron’s rookie
season). Within the next few years, they became household names, dropping
performances that in retrospect seem underappreciated (Late Registration/ the 2007 Finals appearance). Then came, what
appeared to be at the time, their crowning achievements and official arrival as
the leaders of their industry (Graduation/
back to back MVPs). This was the time where they were at the peak of their
popularity, but not quite the masters of their craft. Their otherworldly
strengths (production/ explosiveness) covered up their subtle weaknesses
(LeBron’s jump shooting and competitiveness/ Kanye’s lyrical ability, which I
know I’m going to catch flack for but he really isn’t that great of a rapper).
That is until they combined a lackluster performance with decisions that
resulted in a PR nightmare (808 and
Heartbreaks and the Taylor Swift incident/ The Decision and the 2011
Finals). That brief period resulted in these greats becoming outcasts almost overnight.
Their aforementioned weaknesses became the focus of their narratives and
allowed for the public to devalue their overall abilities and worth. That is
until they unleashed the run of a lifetime and achieved their true peaks (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne/ back to back championships and an Olympic medal).
MBDTF is the definition of a perfect album and Watch the Throne is a beast of its own. On the flip side, LeBron
put up better numbers during his first stint in Cleveland, but the Miami
version of LeBron is arguably one of the top five players of all time. He
filled the holes in his game and became, as I like to joke, a Super Saiyan.
Whether you like these guys or not, there’s no denying that
on their best days they are still champions of their fields.
Vintage Sound
ReplyDeletebest hip hop artist