Beats, Bars, and Basketball: Vol. 1 - "The Rapper Hoopers Vs. The Hooper Rappers"

WARNING: I’m about to be all in up in my feels on the beautiful relationship between Basketball and Hip-Hop and I’m gonna nerd tf out creating these “Rapper Hooper” and “Hooper Rapper”rosters. If you just want see the list of the best crossovers between the two, go ahead and skip to the vids, but for those who wanna really dive in…

Basketball and Hip-Hop have always shared a heartbeat. True fans of both can’t help but blend the imagery and mythos of the two. The rhythm necessary for greatness in both crafts binds them on a molecular level. College courses could be constructed on the symbiotic nature of their adjacent cultures and all of its societal implications. They share a Mecca in NYC. Hip-Hop was born there (conceived hundreds and thousands of years ago in the Motherland ofc) and Basketball; while officially born in Massachusetts, came of age stylistically and commercially both on the streets and in the Garden of the Big Apple. Coincidentally, these two things happened at about the same time in the late 70’s. Both of their respective rises in pop culture and commercialization for the next 4 decades almost mirror one another. Their own respective styles and fashion as well as their impact on the fashion world and style at large are enormous and intricately intertwined. Both grew from somewhat obscure niches to become ubiquitous worldwide influence and money machines.

Basketball and Hip-Hop are each other’s greatest inspirations, but they often experience the same lows. When Nipsey Hussle passed in 2019, it visibly rocked the NBA world. And when Kobe Bryant passed less than a year later, it devastated the Hip-Hop scene. At the highest