Apparently scoring buckets, winning championships, and hanging out with rappers isn't enough for a handful of NBA players and these days; they want to try the rap game out themselves. It rarely works, and for the most part, we'd like professional basketball players to stay away from the mic (unless you're Lance Stephenson, in which case you can do whatever you want). However, there are rare instances where an NBA player is almost as nice in the booth as he is on the court. Portland Trail Blazers' star Damian Lillard is one of them, according to his Instagram account.
Hustle and Drone put together their song and video "Again & Again" by taking Damian Lillard's raps on Instagram, and mixing it with their instrumentals and a pretty catchy chorus. Considering that Damian is only rapping on 15-second clips, the song comes together pretty well. It's clear, because of the audio quality, that Lillard wasn't in the booth, but there is a consistency to his flow and delivery that somehow makes this video and song make sense.
"Damian Lillard has been posting videos of himself rapping for four bars every Friday, which he refers to as '4 Bar Friday,'" Hustle and Drone's keyboardist and co-founder, Ryan Neighbors, said over email. "I myself am a huge Blazers and Damian Lillard fan, and on top of that, he has a great flow and really cool rhymes. So I decided to go through all of them, pick the ones that flow together, and make a song out of them." Tell me this doesn't sound like a skit straight out of the show Portlandia.
Hustle and Drone's debut EP, Holyland, is out now. You can also catch them at Red Bull Sound Select's 30 Days in L.A. on Nov. 14.
