Now rapping "Basketball", Number 1, Kurtis Blow . . .

December 12, 2013 9:40 AM

Kurtis Blow's "Basketball", 30 years later. A cagey look back at the hardest of hard odes to roundball.
posted by yerfatma (11 comments total)

Cheech and Chong's "Basketball Jones", 40 years later.

(OK that was 35 years later, but whatever)
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 10:00 AM on December 12, 2013

Aiike.

There's a special place in hell for Kurtis (or his producer) for this hook. My local NBA affiliate loves dragging this out when they roll the peewee full-court exhibitions during halftime. Just the hook. Basketballlllll, they're playing basketballllll. Aiike.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:00 AM on December 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

To the hoop, y'all!
posted by DigDoug at 10:06 AM on December 12, 2013

my eyes
posted by andreaazure at 10:07 AM on December 12, 2013

G. Love baby
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:21 AM on December 12, 2013

Somebody really should call a technical foul on that guy with the nunchucks.
posted by Flunkie at 10:21 AM on December 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

You're free to come and go, or talk like Kurtis Blow, but there's a pair of eyes in back of your head, where your eyes don't go. A filthy scarecrow waves its broomstick arms and does a parody of each unconscious thing you do. When you turn around to look, it's gone behind you. On it's face, it's wearing your confused expression.
posted by straight at 10:25 AM on December 12, 2013 [4 favorites]

I have never heard that song before, and it's OK if I never hear it again.

Basketball Jones, on the other hand, is art.
posted by cccorlew at 10:50 AM on December 12, 2013

Oh man, this SONG. I remember discovering the record in my college radio station in 1999 or so; it instantly became one of my favorites. I grew up in a suburb where rap like this was ....not well-known or respected, and it fucking blew my mind. I never knew it was so popular. Probably explains why the old people at the station thought I was crazy to like it so much (it was the kind of place where admitting you liked popular music was akin to suicide). Great article, and thanks for the surreal video too.
posted by holyrood at 11:13 AM on December 12, 2013

man is it ever a pedestrian tune.

Totally. But for a white kid growing up in Rhode Island around 1983, it was part of Something Very Different. Still gets stuck in my head on a quarterly basis.
posted by yerfatma at 2:58 PM on December 12, 2013

OK, so I was in the studio assisting when they recorded this thing. I haven't listened to it since then, not even just now. Memories: The bass drum is actually the sound of a basketball bouncing on the studio floor. Linn would burn chips of custom sounds, and then you could open up the LinnDrum, pop out the stock chip, and pop in the custom chip. Producers JB Moore and Robert Ford contributed names of basketball players that KB didn't know - I recall "The Rucker". The ladies who contributed background vocals were pretty talented, unlike their counterparts on other records in that style that I worked on. A session player brought in a Fairlight to simulate scratching on the cut called "AJ Scratch" on the same album. There was also a strange synthesizer on that album, don't remember at the moment what it was called, but it was exotic. Moore told me "AJ Scratch" would be hit. I didn't believe it, the whole thing seemed so inane and AJ seemed so incompetent having his parts played on a Fairlight, but weeks later, wouldn't you know, I heard it blasting out of boom boxes all over New York. Among KB's entourage was a musical group called Full Force that went on to score a few hits. Russell Simmons was around much of the time, not sure why. I remember him talking about rappers with KB. He said, "That sh*t is whack!", clearly not liking that sh*t. I'd never heard the term before and would have sworn he said "That sh*t is white!" That left me feeling sort of intimidated.
posted by Greenie at 6:58 PM on December 12, 2013 [4 favorites]