get down: Ballers/Rappers

Congrats to the Miami Heat for taking the whole enchilada. I especially got love for the old skoolers (GP, Zo, Riles, and maybe even some for Walker). But since this is supposed to be a music blog, I can’t just talk about ball. So the next logically thing is to bring up that age-old debate, ballers who want to be rappers & rappers who want to be ballers. The connection is clear, both achieve a high level of financial success and come from humble beginnings. Now with the rappers who want to be ballers, I tend to think that they’re are more success stories here than vice versa. Some clean examples of fellas who can rock the pill as well as the mic are Snoop, Nelly, Biv (from Bell Biv DeVoe), etc. Some of these were serious ballers, but saw a better future in hip-hop (a la Master P).

Now the other way around, ballers who want to be rappers, hasn’t worked as well for some reason. Prime examples include AI, Kobe, and most recently, Tony Parker (in French nonetheless). And who can forget, or at least hope to forget, that sorry compilation B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret, where the hottest producers at the time (Warren G, Ill Al Skratch, etc.) worked with ballers like Jason Kidd, Cedric Ceballos, etc. The way that one worked out, they probably all wish it was still a secret. We won’t even get into the other sports athletes (Deion Sanders is probably thanking the Lord as we speak). But there has been one exception to this rule: The Diesel. Shaquille O’Neal has dropped more solo albums (4) and had better sales than any other baller/rapper period. Consider this, Shaq’s first album, Shaq Diesel, went platinum in 1993. It did better than hip-hop legends Queen Latifah’s, Soul’s of Mischief’s & Run DMC’s albums that same year. I mean, BIG was so big, that he even had his video for the song “Outstanding” debut on In Living Color, when it was still a hot show.