The GOAT Debate: Is Kobe or LeBron a Better Rapper?
I swear sports and music are so synonymous
Cause we want to be them, and they want to be us
— Aubrey Drake Graham, Thank Me Now (2010)
Basketball and Rap has always been interconnected. As observant NBA viewers, we often spot our favorite rappers sitting courtside dapping up the players during warm ups and also find those same players on stage performing alongside their favorite rappers. Most notably, Travis Scott and James Harden’s friendship has turned good ol’ Houston, Texas into H-Townnnn and the Rockets even brought La Flame out to perform pregame in the playoffs. On the other hand, Harden has been on stage at several Scott performances and starred in Scott’s “Way Back” music video (which I had no idea about). Many, of course, have went ahead and tried their hand at both hooping and rapping. Percy Miller, aka Master P, is notably the most successful rapper-turned-player, but of course many players have taken their turn on the mic as well.
Last week a song dropped (btw what happened to songs/albums leaking?) with Kevin Durant and LeBron James entitled “It Ain’t Easy” that was recorded during the 2011 lockout. The song consists of both players dropping a verse along with a generic hook. But this isn’t just any song — this is the last piece of evidence we needed to finally end the Kobe v. LeBron debate. Though Kobe has released a few songs during his rap career in the early/mid 2000s, for the sake of this argument, we are going to compare LeBron’s verse in “It Ain’t Easy” to Kobe’s most viewed song on YouTube: a 2001 single by Brian McKnight entitled “Hold Me” which features a verse by the future Hall of Famer. So, who is the better rapper and thus wins the Kobe v. LeBron debate? We will analyze the Flow, Lyrical Content, Foul Language, and Extracurricuals of Kobe and LeBron’s verse to end this debate once and for all.
Flow
Kobe easies his way into the last verse of this upbeat R&B tempo like he easies his way into a contested midrange. His voice is smoother than his fadeaway jumpshot and his Philly really comes out when he pronounces the word “sword” in the first line. He’s confident in his verse — there’s no sense of this being foreign to him. LeBron, on the other hand, is rapping on your typical early 2010s beat with dominant snares and a looped sample. Given the nature of the beat, he took an aggressive approach to his verse, or as the kids say, he went “hard af”. However, the verse just feels awkward. James tries a bit too hard to rhyme each line which comes off as a bit corny. His verse reminds me of a 10th grade biology teacher making a song about eukaryotic cells so his students stay more engaged, but in reality they are all weirded out when he plays this self-recorded song for 3 minutes and has a bar that goes something like “…and we all have a nucleus, you know, that’s really good for all of us.” Bron just doesn’t have that natural fluidity that Kobe brings to his verse.
Better Flow: Kobe
Lyrical Content
Bryant has always been a fierce competitor on the court, but this verse showed that his competitive nature goes well beyond Staples arena — he reveals that he is competing with himself in his verse:
Blood boils when you speak
Makes me weak
But I refuse to weep
Yet when I sleep I feel tears trickling down my cheek
His blood is boiling, and he’s physically weak, but it’s not a torn achilles: it’s his heart. He holds back his tears and is trying to suppress the pain love has brought him, but he just can’t take it. Kobe Bean Bryant, The Black Mamba, Mr. 81, the man who didn’t flinch when Matt Barnes faked throwing a ball at his face, the man who literally called his former teammate Smush Parker “the worst”, just admitted to crying in his sleep. Let me repeat myself: KOBE BRYANT CRIES IN HIS SLEEP. On the other hand, LeBron also brings personal experience into his verse that has shaped him into who he is today:
Single parent, just moms, dad gone
It’s all good pops, you made a kid strong
Later in the song, James also mentions to leave his family alone when it comes to criticism of the 14x All Star and to put it on him — a mantra he’s made throughout his career. However, James also makes many stereotypical rap lines including mentioning the variety of planes he boards and how he will call his “goons” up to freshen up your “chromes” (which I truly have no idea what that means but it sounds like something a suburban white mom might call the cops on him for). End of day, Kobe admitting to crying whilst sleeping and there’s nothing more real than that.
Better Lyrical Content: Kobe
Foul Language
Nobody cursed in either song which I’m super disappointed about. Thus, for this category, each players’ counterpart on their respective songs were evaluated instead.
Brian McKnight didn’t even attempt to curse on his song and I’m going to assume that 2001 Kobe saw him in the studio and said something like, “Hey I’m the face of adidas and I don’t want to cause a ruckus and I want to keep my clean image so don’t cuss okay thanks.” KD, on the other hand, uses a slew of sailor talk including the MF-word and the A-word. I’m going to assume Bron antagonized KD in the studio and said something like, “Aye you realize Westbrook keeps trying to take shots from you right? YOU’RE the franchise player, not him. And Jordan brand designing some basura shoes in your name. You just gone take that?”
Better Foul Language: LeBron
Extracurriculars
A Travis Scott “it’s lit!” would have been perfect for either of these songs (or pretty much every song ever made) but unfortunately neither of these songs had great adlibs. Kobe jumps straight into his verse without any sort of adlib acknowledging that his verse has started. A Black Mamba hiss would have been interesting to hear, but it probably would have been weird as hell to hear a grown man making a hissing noise on a song. Bron, on the other hand, delivers a nice “uhhh” before beginning his verse and as well as at the tail end of the track. Bron also gives a quick shoutout to Akron after his verse which is better than anything Kobe did in regards to extracurricular activity.
Extracurriculars: LeBron
Word Count (I’m adding this since it’s a tie at the moment)
LeBron says more words than Kobe on their respective tracks.
Word Count: LeBron
Final Score:
Bron: 3 Kobe: 2
Thus, with all the facts, statistics, and lyrical analysis, I can say within a 9500% confidence interval that LeBron James is in fact the GOAT.
