Chapter 5: The NBA and the Two Souls of Hip-Hop

The connection of hip hop and basketball is a great one. There are many basket ball player that rap (Kobe, Iverson Shaq). On the otherhand there are many rappers that play basketball (bow wow, master p ) the list goes on and on. The league was full of older guys witout the generation of Hip-Hop. The NBA started to get young players who were rooted in this music culture. With Hip- Hop on the rise, it was having an influence on these young player coming into the league. In return, the league started to be come Hip Hop itself. Everything about the players today is Hip Hop from the language they use ( slang) to the clothes. We have players not caring that they are suspended because they want to work on there music career (Ron Artest). With the flip we have rappers who are owners (Jay-z) as well as spokes people for the sport. The league has done some things to try to prevent this look from entering the NBA. NBA officials have instituted a dress code to class the player up a little bit while entering and leaving games. Another way of keeping this Hip-Hop style out of the NBA was to institute that high school players must complete a year of college. This was to take the young, who is most closely connected to this hip hop culture, out the game. This image that the NBA is trying to convey is to make the player look like the fan who buys tickets.
This image change is one I think is not the best thing for the league. America loves sports so why are we always trying make every think so corporate? It’s bad enough that tickets sales are so high that Joe Schmo can’t buy them. When the fans can buy tickets, most of the seats are sold to corporate sponsors. We went from Dad and son or family or a group of friends going to games to the suit and tie guy who go because they can. Now we are taking the player personality and making them carbon copy’s of each other. We need to just let players play the game and let them be them outside the game.