Editor’s note: Tony’s Kansas City is one of the the internets most consistent websites for news and views from the fly-over states (read: Middle America). This has made TONY a sort of cultural bellwether for spotting trends and details that emerge from the heartland of the American culturescape. TONY has taken a minute from exposing the hypocrisy of Midwestern politicos and their greedy real estate owning cohorts to address an issue that is all too relevant with the opening of the NFL season and the NBA tipoff not far behind.
Hip-hop will ruin your career as a pro-athlete
Because the world, pop culture and democracy have become nothing more than exercises in cross-marketing and branding it’s still important to remember that the influence of hip-hop extends to even the most mundane aspects of our lives and our television viewing habits.
Sadly, hip-hop’s commercial appeal and its intersection with world of professional sports usually ends up in some kind of train wreck.
It wasn’t always this way. Most of us remember the iconic imagery used by Spike Lee in the early days of marketing the Air Jordans which perfectly fused the urban culture of hip-hop with the overt capitalism of hocking crappy shoes via Lee’s Mars Blackmon coupled with Jordan’s incredible talent. It worked so well that it would eventually inspire so many high school kids to shoot their fellow students in order to possess these cultural status symbols. Still, the shoes, the ensuing controversy and those classic black and white commercials served to keep many Asian toddlers employed and earning enough money so that their families never had to worry about where the next bowl of rice would come from… God Bless you capitalism. Anyhoo, that’s about as good as it got for the merger between hip-hop and pro-sports.
Since then it’s been one embarrassment after another when it comes to pro-athletes and hip-hop.
Admittedly, Shaquille O’Neal had a competent debut album and even a hit single latching onto the flash in the pan fame of the Fu-Schnickens with “What’s up Doc?” Yet, 1993 was not only my senior year in high school but also one of the absolute worst years for hip-hop as the radio pushed turd sandwiches like Digable Planets and I should have been ashamed of myself for listening to crap like N2Deep‘s “Back to the hotel.” I apologize. Anyway, the point here is that Shaq’s foray into the world of rap music was only slightly less embarrassing than the film Kazaam.
Similarly, Allen Iverson’s rap music career was cut short when his CD release in the earlier part of this decade was deemed “coarse, offensive and antisocial” (all prerequisites for a great rap CD) by NBA commissioner David Stern.
And with all of this history you’d think that pro-athletes would stop trying to pursue a career in the hip-hop game which is neither as lucrative nor as likely to lead to a long-term relationship with a blonde groupie as pro-sports.
Sadly, trends have a way of turning up late in the Midwest which might explain Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson’s recent rap controversy and the dis track that may or may not have come from his lips. No homo?
Now LJ vehemently denies the voice on the track is his even though it sounds exactly like him. And the flash in the pan rap group says it was just a stunt for publicity even though they’ve also given radio interviews saying that it was, in fact, Johnson.
The song, rapped in a voice similar to Johnson’s and peppered with references to the f- and n-words, blasts Chiefs president and general manager Carl Peterson — suggesting it was made during Johnson’s holdout before he signed a five-year contract extension worth a guaranteed $19 million and nearly $28 million in the first three years.
The lyrics include: “Carl Peterson, the GM’s running it. They see me, they want to treat me like I’m running it. I wouldn’t give a (expletive) if I’m not coming back. I’d rather play for another team because I’d rather be a running back.”
Yep, the little known rap group went back and forth with their story but in light of the fact that the Chiefs are owned by the Hunt Family who some crackpot conspiracy theorists (like myself) cite as key players in the Kennedy Assassination – It’s no great leap to see how some coercion might have been applied in much the same way that Larry Johnson has never been convicted of domestic violence but he has a solid reputation around KC for putting his shoe on any broad who gives him a hard time.
Still, the important part of the equation here is that even the vague association with any credible form of hip-hop will immediately tarnish the reputation of a pro-athlete. A competitor is allowed to nearly decapitate another human being on the field of sport BUT uttering a rhyme with curse words, the n-word or any decent idea seems to be expressly verboten. And it’s not like I’m standing up for that d-bag and part-time male model for Rocawear Larry Johnson HOWEVER it just strikes me as odd that so many pro-athletes are inspired by hip-hop and the marketing of professional sports is definitely influenced by the music but any specific involvement with the musical genre seems to bring about disaster in so many instances.
Therefore, let Larry Johnson’s dis track serve as an example to any athlete about to get into the rap game. DON’T DO IT! Despite rampant commercialism and the apolitical freak show acts of the vast majority of rappers from The South; at its heart hip-hop is STILL an art form intended to provoke, incite and educate its audience. Meanwhile, pro-sports are simply the modern day equivalent of the brutal Roman games now taking place in this historical epoch and intended only to obfuscate greater social concerns with illusions of fair play, bravery and courage while the empire (unfortunately) moves closer to collapse.
