The stars and emcees who crossed the line between hip-hop and the NBA

This story is part of our new Hip-Hop: ’73 Till Infinity series, a celebration of the genre’s 50th anniversary.

Hip-hop and the NBA have grown up together. The first generation that grew up with mainstream hip-hop landed in the league toward the end of the 90s and never looked back.

Since then, Jordan bobbing his head to Kenny Lattimore has been replaced by LeBron bragging about discovering Migos in 2010.

Hip-hop is more than just a marketing tool for shoe brands or corporate synergy. It permeates throughout the sport. At times, the NBA’s C-Suites have gotten uncomfortable with the cultural connection and even tried to institute a dress code for players, but even they couldn’t stop a runaway train. Above all though, one thing has remained consistent. Athletes aspire to spill lyrics on and hoopers want to be NBA stars.

Hip-hop is a unique expression of rhythm, brashness and a demonstration of individual prowess that rivals the heliocentricsm of the league’s top playmakers. Both are mediums where one talent can raise the entire entertainment quality. Unlike R&B, there are few background vocals and tuning mixers to support an artist’s mic skills. You either got it or you get exposed. The same thing goes for the NBA’s elite.

The intersection between rappers and athletes is replete with roadkill, but here are the interlopers who were most effective at bleeding the lines between the NBA and hip-hop for better or worse.

Percy Miller’s star was blinding in the early 90s. While putting New Orleans on the map with No Limit Records, Miller also made us say ohhhh... when he tried out for the Continental Basketball Association’s Fort Wayne Fury and made the team. Back then, the CBA was the unofficial NBA development league, so Miller was saying something by barnstorming around the country on a pro team. Miller showed enough promise to earn a tryout from the Charlotte Hornets as a favor to Ricky Davis’ father.

It’s crazy to think there was a time when Ricky Davis had that much pull within an organization, but those post-Jordan NBA years were a strange time. As for Miller, he flashed potential in the Hornets summer league and even got hot in the preseason for Toronto, but at the age of 28, he’d been in the clubs too long. It’s hard enough making the league as a guard, but even tougher when you haven’t trained day in and day out for a decade of your prime. Afterwards, Miller tried to get into sports management and even pursued coaching the New Orleans Pelicans. He even wound up coaching and mentoring DeMar DeRozan on the AAU circuit.

Shaquille O’Neal the MVP needs no introduction. Shaq the rapper even did solid numbers based solely off of the strength of his persona. His flow was weak, but he had such a command of a mic that you couldn’t help but watch or listen. For example, here’s a sample of Shaq cringe-rapping with a teenager in Kazaam. “”Those babies had rabies and we was in Hades cause we moved with the harem of the Akba d’Karem.” I’ll chalk that up to the writers, but O’Neal’s rap career still managed to span two decades.

Between 1992 and 2011, O’Neal signed with Jive Records, released four studio albums, two compilations and a slew of singles for various movies he starred or co-starred in. His legacy as one of the OGS of the NBA and hip-hop connection is set in stone.

Metta Sandiford-Artest has had more names than Sean Combs. And while his NBA career was chock full of accolades, it was also shrouded by his foibles, the Malice at the Palace and his larger than life personality.

If you flip to Artest’s B-side, you’ll find a producer in him still trying to break out as ‘more than just a basketball player. He’s probably an end of the bench rapper for a record label team, but in 2006, he released an album entitled, My World under his own label which included features from Diddy, Juvenile, Mike Jones, Big Kap and Capone. Not many SoundCloud rappers can say that.

Allen Iverson’s lyrics were probably a little too raw. In the summer of 2000, Jewelz released his debut album “Non Fiction.” It was misogynistic, homophobic, violent and was extremely unpopular around the league. Iverson had the flow, but as one of the faces of the 30-team corporation, it was too much for Commissioner David Stern, who called his album “coarse, offensive, and anti-social.

Dreamsville’s finest is obsessed with hoops. How’s this for a twist on the Michael Jordan origin story. Cole grew up in North Carolina’s basketball hotbed and turned getting rejected at walk-on tryouts for St. John into Grammy winning superstardom. That still wasn’t enough for Cole, who signed with the Rwanda Patriots BBA during the Basketball African League’s inaugural year and in 2022 pursued pro basketball in Canada. You can take the hooper off the hardwood, but you can’t remove his spirit. Delivering bars like “Caron Butler, I’m a Wizard if ya doesn’t know / It’s Young Simba, yeah, I’m ballin’ till the buzzer blow” demonstrate the depths of his fanaticism.

But Cole is still trying to live those hardwood dreams. Reaching the heights Master P. did in the 90s is outside his range, but he may be among the top-5 artists who currently hoop. He even had enough gravitas within the hoops world that he was able to get Caleb Martin, whom he’d known since he was a 19-year-old at North Carolina State, a tryout for the Miami Heat.

R.I.P. to Kobe Bryant. But the rap career never should have happened. The Black Mamba was still trying to find his place in the world when he signed with Columbia Records. In 2000, the 22-year-old Bryant dropped Visions, which apparently was going for gangsta rap album vibes and consisted of features from Nas, 50 Cent, Beanie Segal, Black Thought, and even Destiny’s Child. Considering Bryant was raised in Italy the son of a pro basketball player, him rapping over one of those overproduced 90s beats is hilarious proof that the prefrontal cortex, responsible for decision making, really is the portion of the brain that develops last. The album was dropped before ever seeing the light of day, but snippets and pieces, including a track with some mogul and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model named (checks notes) Tyra Banks.

To prove how much the international hip-hop’s intersection with the NBA has grown, one needs to look no further than Spurs point guard Tony Parker, who recorded his debut album in 2007. The album cover featured him posing all dark and broody like he had bad intentions for the Eiffel Tower which was standing in the background. You don’t have to understand a lick of it though to know that it’s not worth your time though.

Whether he’s freestyling on the Blazers team plane or on the radio with Sway, Dame D.O.L.L.A.’s actually the most prolific rapper in the NBA since prime Shaq. If I’m being honest though, his most memorable bars might be the “Droppin Dimes” track he recorded with Kevin Love for a State Farm ad campaign. has released three albums to mixed reviews, but among the class of NBA stars who’ve dropped albums, his discography is near the top of the stack.

Performing under the Stak5 moniker, Stephen Jackson brought his NSFW stylings to the studio on a slew of singles and even lured Kevin Durant into hopping on a track with him. Suffice to say, it didn’t gain much traction, but props to Jackson for chasing his passion and bringing an MVP down with him.

Drake can’t shoot to save his life. That much we know. Unlike J. Cole and Master P., Aubrey Graham is a bit of a poser. His Kentucky basketball exploits are even the origin of the “Bro, thinks he’s on the team” meme. He didn’t try to play professionally, but for a few years he was an unofficial member of John Calipari’s one-and-done NBA factory at Kentucky. He also made a memorable Midnight Madness appearance in 2014 that was the origin of the “Bro, thinks he’s on the team” meme. Since then, Graham has grown out of his Kentucky phase and has since become part-owner of the Toronto Raptors where he can often be seen courtside trying to play mind games with NBA stars.