Life's just one big jump shot

Over break I was skimming through the clearance CDs at Half Price Books in Indianapolis, hoping to find some bargains. I did find about 4 copies of Arrested Development's 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life of..., which I gladly copped for myself and Brad. I also found B-Ball's Best Kept Secret, an amazing compilation released in 1994 that features a bunch of NBA players rapping over (surprisingly passable and even good) beats from Diamond D and Warren G, among others. They even got 3/4 of Brand Nubian (Puba, Sadat X and DJ Alamo) to guest on a song with Dana Barros and Cedric Ceballos. So, there is some actual talent in the project, but let's get real - the reason I bought this, the reason why anyone would buy this, is that it is always hilarious to hear professional athletes try to rap.


The album starts off with some painfully awkward spoken word from some dude named Bamboo, then moves right into "Check It" by Dana Barros. The beat and Barros' cadence reminds me a little of Hard 2 Obtain's "Street Dwellers," except he just names a bunch of hip-hop all-stars (Wu-Tang, Redman, Pete Rock/CL Smooth, etc.) and shouts "Boo-ya-ka!" In truth, he actually has one of the best flows of anyone on this record, and is generally able to stay on beat and not embarrass himself. It's basically downhill from there, except for Malik Sealy, who holds his own on "Lost in the Sauce" (plus he shouts out his boys in Indiana, which is always appreciated. R.I.P., Malik).

Particularly bad is Cedric Ceballos, who raps like a less talented version of Shaq, continually refers to himself as "the deuce-trey", and rhymes "huggable" with "incredible." How he, of all people, is the one that ended up on the track with Warren G is beyond me. Shaq is on this too, and it's nowhere near as amazing as "Biological Didn't Bother." In my mind, Shaq is allowed to suck at rapping, because he's developed an reputation as somewhat of a clown, so his ventures into the rap world (ill-advised as they may have been) can't be taken seriously at all. But Cedric Ceballos has no such excuse, and should never, ever be allowed near a mic again.

Chris Mills is also terrible, which is fitting because he was never really a very good basketball player either. I kind of want to reprint all of the lyrics to "Sumptin' To Groove To," which also features one of the worst beats on the album, because they are just that amazing. To wit: he starts his third verse with "Here I go, playin' verse two..." He also says things like "I flow like fluid" and "I just do it like Nike, I got a deep psyche/and this track here? I like it like Mike." It's very important to note that he does not say "Mikey," which, while stupid, would actually rhyme. No, C-Mills leaves off that last syllable, sacrificing the rhyme scheme in favor of slogan accuracy. I hope His Airness got him some cash for that free plug.

The rest is fairly garden-variety positive hip-hop (can't give the kids anything like "40 Bars," these dudes are role models. Not that I'm implying that "40 Bars" was good; I've actually never heard it), but bad/hilarious/basketball-themed because it's people like Gary Payton and Jason Kidd doing the rapping. I'm not sure why this album exists - it certainly is nothing new and nothing good - but I'm really glad that it does, because it's always fun to see famous people embarrass themselves. Now if we could just get this to soundtrack video footage of Master P's Raptors tryout, we'd be in great shape.