Hip-hop & Hoops

Hip-hop & Hoops All-Star weekend perfect venue for merging rappers and players

By SONIA MURRAY Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Probably nothing sums up how connected hip-hop and hoops are better than this fact: Nine out of 10 acts on Billboard's rap top 10 are expected to perform and/or party here over the NBA's All-Star Game long weekend.

The only one not here? The late Tupac Shakur.

With major rap and R&B acts -- OutKast, Cee-Lo, Lil' Jon & the East Side Boyz, Da Brat, Pastor Troy -- already living and working in Atlanta, having the All-Star game here is especially synergistic. But the truth is, wherever they are, hip-hop and hoops seem to find each other.

It's been almost an inevitable intermingling: After all, the typical player in the NBA (average age 27) and the music (commercial since 1979) grew up together.

In the same place even, many say.

"Back in my day, when I was coming up, it was synonymous," recalls DMC (Darryl McDaniels) of pioneering rap group Run-DMC. "You play basketball all day in the park. And at night, the DJs bring the turntables out on the court and everyone starts rhyming. "It's just like people who grew up doing skateboards, extreme sports, jumping off buildings and that kind of thing identify with people who look like them, act like them and probably did what they do -- the rockers," continues McDaniels. "Ballers are just listening to their peers, their people, themselves really." It's gotten to the point that they're often mistaken for each other.

Atlanta rapper Ludacris says it's almost commonplace now when he and his manager Chaka Zulu take their first class seats on the plane, a fellow passenger will ask: "What team do y'all play for?" Nevermind that Ludacris is 5' 7".

"We all fit the profile though," says Ludacris. "We both wear the platinum jewelry and the diamonds. We all wear jerseys and a lot of us have corn rows. So I can kind of understand that in a lot of people's minds it's 'Hey, those guys are either rappers or ballers.' Hell, it's gotten to the point were hip-hop artists do refer to themselves as 'ballers' on their records."

But the connection is bigger than the look, adds New York Knick Allan Houston.

"We identify with the whole hip-hop culture," says Houston, also owner of H20 Productions, a burgeoning gospel rap business based in Atlanta. "It's part of who we are. How we talk. The swagger and confidence on the court. It's no different than the way Eminem or OutKast or somebody spits their lyrics." The blurred lines have led to more than a few basketball players recording their own rap CDs -- forgettable though most of them are. "I can understand, you know, loving the music and having the kind of money that you can put a record industry-standard studio in your house," McDaniels says. "But most of these guys have been hitmakers in their own minds."

The exception was Shaquille O'Neal. The four original CDs he released between 1993 and 2002 sold millions,according to Nielsen SoundScan; thanks to a huge assist from admiring rappers and producers who contributed to the albums. "Shaq got better and better over the years," contends Joe Clair, host of BET's Maad Sports show. "In then end it wasn't beyond believable that if he wasn't playing ball he might have gotten signed [to a record deal]."

Clearly Clair heard different Shaq records than Chris Wilder, sports editor for the Source magazine.

"Shaq, we love Shaq, but he's horrible," Wilder counters. "And every guy that's come after him, [fellow Laker] Kobe , [Sacramento King] Chris Webber, [Philadelphia '76er] Allen Iverson -- awful. There's no good players-turned-rappers."

And rappers-turned-NBA players have had even worse luck.

The best-known, and as far as observers can recall, the only known rap star to seriously try to make the leap to pro ball was New Orleans' Master P, aka Percy Miller. The Charlotte Hornets actually gave him a try-out five years ago, but he was cut.

Miller did manage to establish enough credibility in the NBA that players Ron Mercer and Derek Anderson both signed to his then-new No Limit Sports agency. Snagging Heisman trophy winner Ricky Williams, however, was what really got him notice. The incentive-laden deal Miller's company brokered between Williams and the New Orleans Saints, in particular, was publicly ridiculed by established agents. Williams soon left and in late 2000 No Limit Sports announced it was taking time off to reorganize. Still, the brief shelf life of the first incarnation of No Limit Sports in no way deterred fellow hip-hop entrepreneur Jermaine Dupri. In 1999 he and established NFL agent Hadley Engelhard formed So So Def Sports, a 31-client agency that launched its basketball division this year. "I think I'm in the best seat possible to promote today's athletes the way they want to be a promoted, as a front-runner in hip-hop," explains Dupri, head of Atlanta- based So So Def Records and the producer of such artists as Usher, Mariah Carey and Jay-Z.

"All the ideas I give to the players are the same ones I would give to [teen rapper] Bow Wow in terms of marketing. I can make sure one of my clients gets on [BET rap video show] 'Da Bassment.' They want to be on the couch with [co-hosts] Free and AJ on [BET's top-rated video countdown show] '106 & Park.' And when we're there, we can be like, 'Here we brought y'all some jerseys.' And when me and my artists are on there we'll be wearing So So Def Sports clients' gear. Cross-promotions baby."

BET isn't merely a medium for this cross-promoting, it's a conscientious purveyor. Since 1998 the cable channel has aired "Maad Sports," a Saturday afternoon program that includes a segment where athletes host a countdown of their favorite rap and R&B videos. And many of those athletes are NBA players.

"We include all of the sports, all of athletica as you might call it," joked Clair, also a comedian. "The mens water polo team and all of that type stuff. But I get the feeling people really want to see a Tracy McGrady doing his countdown, and the NBA players are quick to do it." The easy melding was also noticed by hip-hop magazine, the Source. In 1995 it started publishing annual basketball preview issues, with features like "Kendall Gill meets Wyclef Jean," and covers including then-Minnesota Timberwolve Stephon Marbury scowling alongside New York rapper Redman.

From 1997 to 2000 it was a quarterly venture, one that the Source's Wilder has good reason to believe will be revived.

"We were ahead of the trend," he says of Source Sports. "Now everywhere you look, rap is selling something: shoes, burgers, soda. We're planning to be there All-Star weekend to send an All-Star daily news service and shoot stuff for the TV show" We're well-aware of how much business sense it makes to tap into the appeal of players and rappers."

Just don't knock the often streetwise, and street-bred twosome the wrong way.

For example, burgeoning Atlanta rapper Killer Mike was more than a little peeved that in a promo for an All-Star activity he's participating in, he was referred to as "K. Mike." On purpose.

"It's just like these corporations to pull these young African-American men out of ghettos to play sports and rap, but get angry that they dance after touchdowns or that they want to flex after they dunk," says Mike. "They keep denying us who we are in order to make us fit in their pretty little box. But they want us in that box or on that show or on that court because we're the reason they're making this ridiculous kind of money. "It speaks to the subtle classism -- not racism --classism that occurs as corporate America deals more and more with these young, influential, African-American ball-players and rappers."

It is an ism, however, that Mike says he's willing to "suffer" now.

After all, hip-hop artists who've sold millions of records clearly see getting in front of athletes they have a mutual respect with and fans who like them both as a win-win situation.

And he wants next.