I spoke with Dr. Spencer on Friday about her comments on the
NBA and the culture of hip-hop. She suggested that I share more with the class.
My Uncle, who works for Spalding, goes to every NBA All-star weekend each year.
I remember one specific weekend in particular that stuck out in my mind. He
talked to the family about it and it was the All-star weekend in Las Vegas
(2007).
This was the first NBA All-star game that I remember being
interested in and probably why I remember what he said about his experience. I
called him this weekend to see if he still had any memories from that weekend,
the following is a combination of my memory and his words. Besides Las Vegas
being Las Vegas he said that this was his first NBA weekend where he felt that
the atmosphere was much different than it had been in the past. He remembered
the crowds and the clothing people wore as much different. He described it as
“thugy.” When I asked him what that meant he replied with a summary of the
following. Everyone had a posse. Everywhere you looked it was large groups of
people in flashy clothing. At the Las Vegas game he said he had never seen so
many mouth grills, which would have been right around the time Nelly’s song Grillz was released. It came out in
2005, but became popular in 2006. It was not just fans coming to watch the NBA
greats. It was people showing off their status and who they knew. I asked him
if it seemed like it was a hip-hop culture and he said yes exactly. It was not
hip-hop being a fan of the NBA it was the NBA being at a hip-hop event. My
Uncle is a sales rep for the company; perks from the job are preferential
treatment at events like the All-star weekend. He said that the number of
hip-hop artists that he is normally surrounded by outweigh the number of fans that
would pay that much money to have the luxuries they experience during a weekend
event like this.
I found this conversation with my Uncle to be ironic after
talking about it in class. He said that hip-hop and the NBA are like a pair,
with one comes the other. I asked him to elaborate and he said they are just
like peas and carrots (very deep). I think it is interesting that we see this
in the NBA but not the NFL or MLB. I mean every once and a while the camera
will pan to the boxes up top to show celebrities, but we never see Drake being
a host on Monday Night Football. There must be something that attracts hip-hop
to basketball, but I do not know what it is. If I had to guess why I would say
that it is a longer season, with more airtime, shorter game-time, indoors, and
you have the ability to show yourself off. I am not saying that people involved
in hip-hop like to show off, but I think this is why we also see more
celebrities at NBA games.
Cam,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, this is really awesome insight in to what you described as "ironically" what we just talked about in class the other day. I agree with the assumption you make that the NBA seems to draw more celebrities to their All-Star game because of the visibility of the event, and that it is always held indoors helps. The NBA in general seems to hold more value to "fat-cat business people" for their tickets, as any moderately successful team's ticket prices rise dramatically. This would also transfer over to the All-Star game which I would assume the tickets for that event are extremely high. The NBA's lean towards higher-profile clients, and the visibility of the events would seem to both contribute to so many celebrities attending the All-Star Game. However, that doesn't explain the hip-hop culture at the game, and in the NBA. I don't really have an answer that addresses that question.
Good post!
Joey Durant
Brittany Sinclair
ReplyDeleteI think this is great insight as to hip hop and the NBA having some sort of correlation. I wouldn't go as far as to describing it as "thugy", but I definitely think the nba is influenced by hip hop culture, if you ink about, most nba players listen to hip hop and their favorite artist seem to be hip hop artists. To me it's like returning the favor, I support your music and you support the NBA. Therefore, you will find a lot of hip hop artists and culture surrounding these types of NBA events.
Cam,
ReplyDeleteWhat your Uncle described is pretty much how it is portrayed on TV as well. The “posses” seem to be focused on by the cameras, and the atmosphere reminds me of almost a “party-like” atmosphere. This definitely connects to your statement about the NBA being essentially a guest at a hip-hop event. When you discussed “Grillz” by Nelly, and how popular grills were, it definitely seems to have a connection as far as the time it came out, and supports the “party” atmosphere.
In general, another hip-hop connection that I just thought of is the song “Oh My” by DJ Drama, because one of the lyrics states, “…like LeBron I’m takin’ my talents down to South Beach.” I’m not sure if this song is well-known, which could demonstrate even further how hip-hop is connected to the NBA. This is because the song does not necessarily have to be extremely popular, yet their lyrics demonstrate the connection with this professional basketball league.
Cam,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this information from your Uncle. There are some scholars who have written about this relationship between the NBA and hip hop - as we discussed earlier. One was a former professor at BGSU (Dr. Halifu Osumare). Another is a professor at USC, in L.A. (Dr. Todd Boyd). I'm going to share more about this in future classes.
Again, thanks for confirming my observations! Oh, btw, I was talking about this with my nephews and one of them pointed out that he thought when LeBron was in Miami, the Heat had a reputation as being "thugs." I looked that up and like Casey pointed out, there was a song by D.J. Drama. I definitely need to check that out:-)
Dr. Spencer