In 2002, Rasheed Wallace hosted a hip-hop show on Portland’s sadly defunct Jammin’ 95.5. I remember listening to it, but I can remember precisely nothing about it. I had hoped to find episodes online, but then I remembered that YouTube didn’t exist in 2002, and local radio shows hosted by NBA players in small markets aren’t the kind of thing people were compelled to record and save back then.

What I did find, though, amounts to a mini-treasure trove of Sheed bars. To begin with, his taste is unimpeachable. He probably doesn’t own 14 copies of Take Care like Brandon Jennings does. He’s more of a Wu-Tang guy, as this SportsCenter clip shows. They call it a freestyle, but it’s actually Nas’ (phenomenal) verse on “Verbal Intercourse,” a track from Raekwon’s peerless Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. (Note: This one is fine since it’s from an ESPN broadcast, but the rest of this videos in this post can safely be classified as “NSFW.”)

Next up is “P.H.I.L.L.Y.,” from a group called 100X. Sheed’s is the third verse. As you might expect, he mixes some hoops rhymes in with repping his hometown of Philadelphia. For an NBA player, he’s a more than respectable rapper:

I have no idea where this freestyle comes from or when it was recorded, but it’s mostly notable for clearing things up for those who confuse him with Joe Budden, which is obviously a common mistake that needed to be addressed.

This last one might contain subtle drug references, something nobody would ever expect from Sheed. I don’t know when this freestyle was recorded, but it had to be post-retirement. Any active player dropping bars like “In my right hand a drink, in the left is a J” would probably get fined. On the other hand, would that stop Sheed? He’d likely just CTC and act like it never happened.

Photo courtesy of Billboard.com.

This edition of Got Skillz is not, strictly speaking, about the musical pursuits of basketball players. As anybody with a functional Twitter account no doubt is well aware, last night saw the release of Watch the Throne, the hotly anticipated new album from Kanye West and Jay-Z. The track “Gotta Have It” features this line from Kanye: “Ain’t that where the Heat play?/N***as hate ballers these days/Ain’t that like LeBron James?” To which Jay responds: “Ain’t that just like D-Wade?” Rappers name-check ballers all the time, but this one felt strikingly appropriate. An album-length collaboration from Kanye and Hov is more or less equivalent to LeBron and Wade teaming up in Miami, and comes with many of the same questions.
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Out of the current crop of NBA superstars, Dwight Howard is the most likeable and personable. Hardly anybody would dispute this. His co-opting of Shaq’s “Superman” persona was savvy not only because it came as he was passing the Big Diesel in on-court production, but also because with Howard, it didn’t seem like a put-on. As such, if there were one guy in the league who could release a children’s album without seeming calculated, he’d be it.
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As I’d imagine most people reading this did, I found out about Michael Jackson’s death while watching the 2009 NBA draft, and it made it considerably more difficult for me to care which cities Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan would be playing professional basketball in. I never have emotional reactions to celebrity deaths, but Michael was different. His personal life had been in such disarray for the 10 years leading up to his death that far too many people forgot his true impact. He was, despite his troubles, still the second-most ubiquitous act in pop history, behind only the Beatles. Depending on your view, either “I Want You Back” or “Billie Jean” is the greatest pop song of all time. The shortlist of the most important American musical icons of the 20^th century basically goes Sinatra, Elvis, Dylan, and Michael. So, yeah, his death, much like his life and music, had a bit of an impact on me. He also impacted two of the most fascinating and compelling personalities in recent NBA history, one of whom recorded a song with him in 1995, while the other released a highly personal, if considerably awkward, tribute song shortly after Jackson’s death.

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