If we wrote about every time a basketball player released a rap song, we'd die.
Sure, everybody knows Shaq was a rapper. He rapped with Biggie, and even had a greatest hits album that was half of the songs on one of his albums and half of the songs from the other. We know Ron Artest-turned-Metta World Peace rapped. Allen Iverson infamously rapped. We can keep going, through Tony Parker's French rap, Kobe's collabo with Tyra Banks he hopes we all forgot about, and keep going until we get to Marquis Daniels appearing on a random Gucci Mane mixtape cut. We would die if we wrote about every time a basketball player released a rap song.
However, sometimes we have to take a step back and witness something spectacular. That thing is:
JUWAN HOWARD RAPPING
This thing was alerted to us via Jacob Frankel on Twitter, and it comes from a to-be-released compliation basketball album called Full Court Press Vol. 1
Everything here is pretty straightforward. We have a few basketball players, a few rappers, and they've released an album together, sorta like a 20-years-later B-Ball's Best Kept Secret. It has apparently been several years in the works: Shawn Marion's cut with T-Pain and Dorrough was clearly recorded in the wake of the Mavs' 2011 championship, we made fun of Carlos Boozer's horrendous, horrendous, horrendous track with Twista and ario Winansi n 2011, and an article from 2012 hints the album was set to be released All-Star Weekend of 2013 as opposed to the "Fall 2014" we see in this video.
None of this can take away from watching Juwan Howard rap:
From a rapper sense, Howard -- now an assistant with the Heat -- is not terribly old. At 41, he is three years younger than Jay-Z and four years older than Kanye West. He is a year younger than Busta Rhymes, who still makes songs with young people, sometimes.
As a basketball player, Juwan Howard is the oldest man on the planet. Years in the NBA are like dog years, allowing a 35-year-old Kobe to seem like an old, wise gentleman. Juwan Howard was in the NBA for damn near 20 years, and that's after becoming famous as a college freshman. I could see Juwan Howard relaxing on the front porch with Abe Vigoda and not feel weird about it, is all I'm saying.
Which is why it gives me great joy that we hear some of the most Grandpa Bars of all time:
REMEMBER ME? FROM THE FAB FIVE
"Hey, sonny, take a seat! Remember that thing that happened about 20 years ago? I was a part of that."
HOOP DREAMS WOLVERINE JERSEY NUMBER FIVE
"What rhymes with five? What rhymes with five? It has to rhyme for the kids, and... uh... you know, the presidents nowadays just aren't as good as they used to be. FDR really gave it to those... uh... what was I talking about? Oh yes, FIVE! Five. Five is the word I was looking for. Five rhymes with... whatever that word I was coming up with a rhyme for. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I had a cameo in a movie when I was a young man?"
Mind you: These are his opening lyrics. The first things he came up with, that they decided to include in the video. I cannot wait to hear the rest.
The rest of this doesn't seem that noteworthy -- Stephen Jackson is a downright accomplished rapper, Big Baby's club jam BIG BABY GON TURN IT UP is the stuff of legend, so, not exactly news. Although, yes, we should listen to Carlos Boozer's trash a few dozen more times if we can.