Rap and Basketball has always produced what’s best for the culture.
NBA legend Chris Webber revealed in a recent interview that he is a music producer. He has produced songs for rap legend Nas in the past. Webber produced “Blunt Ashes” and “Surviving the Times” on Nas’s 2006 album, Hip Hop Is Dead.
Webber shared the story of their first meeting and his pride in being part of hip hop history in the interview. “He was just somebody I admired from afar,” said Webber. “I loved his rhymes. We became close. And he was just hearing some beats and he was like, ‘Yo, I’ma put that on the album.”
“I’m being calm about it,” he says in the vid. “But at that time, it’s still one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. For me, as somebody who made beats and listened to music all the time, who grew up in Detroit where music was [king], that was just dope being a part of it.”
The basketball legend credits Naughty By Nature for the birth of his production skills. Big sports fans, the group’s DJ Kay Gee formed a friendship with Webber which led to introduction to beatmaking. “After I left college,” Webber explained before. “[DJ] Kay Gee from Naughty By Nature… he’s a crazy sports fan… I would just go to his house in New Jersey.”
Webber originally revealed producing beats for Nas in 2006 on MTV.
Shaq, Kobe, Iverson, Lillard, the NBA has a long history of basketball players who pursued a career in rap. While Shaq maybe the only basketball star with a platinum album, Damian Lillard is known as the NBA’s best lyricist, and rap music is frequently played in NBA arenas.
Today, Nas remains a prominent figure in hip hop. While a businessman, he produces new music regularly with Hit-Boy, such as Magic and King’s Disease trilogy.