Rapper Explains How Kobe Bryant Stole Him Away From Knicks Despite New York Roots

Rule No. 1 for any basketball fan in New York City is don’t support the opposition. Who is the opposition? Any team on the West Coast, but specifically, the Los Angeles Lakers. Rap artist E.D.I. Mean (whose real name is Malcolm Greenidge) didn’t follow those guidelines. He loved everything about New York but ended up loving a certain young star in Los Angeles more.

The former member of the rap group Outlawz grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Greenidge’s family passed down their love for the New York Knicks to him when he was a kid. Those memories remain vivid in E.D.I. Mean’s mind.

“I grew up a Knicks fan,” E.D.I. said on Byron Scott’s Fast Break. “I was a fan of that ’90s Knicks team with Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Anthony Mason, all of those cats.”

It didn’t seem like another team could ever sway the rapper’s heart. But the franchise began to make decisions that didn’t sit well with E.D.I.’s fandom.

“But then the Knicks as a franchise, to me, started to care more about what it looked like than actually winning. So I became disillusioned like a lot of Knicks fans,” E.D.I. said.

It didn’t help that E.D.I. moved to Los Angeles to further his rap career. While the Knicks were struggling to make savvy decisions, his new in-market team, the Los Angeles Lakers, were doing everything right. The nail in the coffin was when the Lakers acquired a high school prospect in the 1996 NBA Draft.

Kobe Bryant’s arrival changed the trajectory of E.D.I. Mean’s entire basketball fandom. From Bryant’s first NBA game in the 1996-97 season, the rapper became a devoted Lakers fan and hasn’t looked back.

“Living out here in Los Angeles and seeing what the Lakers were about to become and becoming, I’ve been a Laker [fan] ever since. [From] the good, the bad, the rough seasons Kobe had up until right now, I love the Lakers, and I love the franchise,” E.D.I. proclaimed.

E.D.I. was close to rap legend Tupac Shakur, since they were in Outlawz together. They were still young as a group back then, though, so they didn’t get invites to attend Lakers games as a member of celebrity row. Tupac was eventually invited to Lakers games with Death Row label executive Suge Knight. Unfortunately, E.D.I. didn’t receive any of those.

That lack of invitations never soured Greenidge’s opinion of the team. Ahead of the 2025-26 NBA season, he is hoping the Lakers bring home another NBA championship.