Basketball and hip-hop have always shared a deep bond since the latter rose to prominence in the 1980s. Rapper J Cole had NBA dreams while NBA superstar Damian Lillard is also known for his superb bars. The two popular personalities are pretty close friends, which was evident by Lillard’s story about Cole during his latest appearance on the Club 520 pod.
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At one point in the sit-down, Lillard was asked to name the rappers he’d love to collab with for a track. DAME D.O.L.L.A has been keen on collaborating with J. Cole for a long time. Before naming him, Drake, and Kendrick, as his ideal collab partners, Dame went on to narrate his hilarious encounter with Cole a while ago.
He recalled that the rapper once sent him a text. Upon receiving the notification, Lillard anticipated the message to be about doing some kind of a project together. However, the Milwaukee Bucks star was soon disappointed to find out that it wasn’t so.
Cole was just checking to see if Lillard had a roster spot open on his team for one of his friends trying to make a comeback in the NBA.
Teague quipped that the rapper was playing General Manager for his buddy. Lillard laughed at the joke and said that he also felt the same way.
“He [Cole] randomly hit me one time and I’m thinking like, ‘Okay I see his name pop up. Oh he finally probably sent something through.’ I open the message up and he hit me about our roster to see if we got a roster spot about somebody he know trying to get back in the league…”
However, his dreams about a track with Cole took a backseat after that. Dame added, “He was playing GM on me. I’m like, ‘Oh my God bro, I thought the track was coming through, I’ve been to send it right back.’”
At any rate, Cole holds Lillard in high regard and once showed love to him in a fitting manner.
When J. Cole sampled Dame’s interview
In 2021, the rapper released his fifth studio album The Offseason which became an instant hit. The album’s fifth track “p u n c h i n ‘ . t h e . c l o c k” uses the audio sample of Damian Lillard’s interviews in its intro and outro. During the 2020 Orlando bubble season, Lillard dropped 61 points against the Dallas Mavericks.
The rapper used the Lillard’s post-game interview as the intro of the #5 track. Here is what Lillard said,
“It ain’t nothin’ I want more. Ain’t nothin’ I want more. I told you when I first came here, I said ‘I ain’t come here to waste my time.’ I came here…they gave us a chance to get in like we asked for, and that’s what we here to do. Job still ain’t done, but I said, ‘You know what I’m here for.”
For the outro, J. Cole chose Lillard’s interview after his iconic game-winner against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2019 playoffs. During the interview, Dame spoke about how his offseason grind enables him to show up in clutch moments. While these samples hit hard, many fans have been waiting on a Lillard-J Cole collab since a long time.
