HIp-Hop and sports
TO
In the older days sports used to just be for recreation and competition. You rarely heard music playing in the background or anything except the cheer of the fans. Now though, Sports are much more than just a competition between two teams, but a form of entertainment for people of all ages. Now, at everysporting event, there is usuallys some form of hip hop that is involved with one is going on down on the field or on the court. When team members are introduced in basketball what do you usually hear? Hip-Hop. When baseball players come up to bat what do you hear? Hip-Hop. You see the style of NBA ballers on the court with the baggy shorts and the headbands, and what does that remind you of? Probably Hip-hop.
One ad that was one television a couple of years ago that had a hip-hop root was a nike basketball commercial. The comercial used different sounds that a player would make while playing basketball to create a real funky rhythm. You can see the video here http://youtube.com/watch?v=UQk6gBhB5fE . at different points in the video you can see to players dancing with hip-hop style and another actually is spinning on his head via b-boy style. So what nike did is take two things that appeal to the masses, basketball and hip-hop, and were able to gain world-wide attention from what they did.
Athletes often try to give their hand at hip-hop, and in reality it takes much more than money to put together a good albums. Atheletes such as Shaq, Allen Iverson, Deion Sanders, and Ron Artest of all put out or tried to release a rap album. Most, as you could have guessed, have done very poorly. I think that these atheletes should just stick to what they are best at and play sports, while the true hip-hop heads do their thing with the music. Maybe if everyone becomes too involved with hip-hop, like some of the atheletes mentioned above, it might lose its appeal.
This way we are looking at hip-hop becoming to assimilated to culture. This is one reason that Nas has said the hip-hop is dead. If we use something too much it loses it's meaning and in turn loses its importance for what it stands for
posted by Graham at 6:36 AM
1 Comments:
I agree that these days hip hop is very involved in the sporting community. I think that many of the athletes can relate to the hip hop culture more, and that is why the two go hand and hand. Just like you said, hip hop music is at every sporting event you attend these days. They know that hip hop music is popular and upbeat, and makes people have fun at the games. Even here at OU at the basketball, baseball, football, and even soccer games they play hip hop music. I played on the soccer team, and our whole pre-game warm-up cd was hip hop music. It is what gets people pumped up. I think that professional athletes and hip hop artist have a lot in common. A lot of them come up in normal to lower income homes, and are thrown into these situations were they have millions of dollars all of a sudden. They go out and buy the 25 inch rims and the Sean John clothing and represent the hip hop culture, because they have the money. They are what people think of when they think of hip hop, because that is the image seen in the videos and on TV. Even at OU baseball games, the batters walk out to their song that they pick, and the majority of the songs are hip hop. I agree that athletes should not try to break into the hip hop world. Just because they can relate to the music, and may be part of the culture, doesn't mean they can rap. The last thing I wanted to talk about is the comment about the way the athletes dress. Hip hop has definitely influenced the basketball uniforms, with the baggy shorts and the tall socks. Before the Fab 5 they wore shorter shorts and the game wasn't as influenced by hip hop. I think that the longer shorts were the first big step in hip hop becoming more involved in the culture. I can't imagine basketball players today running out to a hip hop song wearing short shorts.
7:59 PM
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