A few years ago, J. Cole starred on the cover of SLAM Magazine. While Cole had been an outspoken fan of the sport for years, including a guest appearance as a prop in a dunk contest at All-Star weekend, it was still a widely unexpected treat to see him overlap with one of the most iconic outlets in basketball culture. Still, he was certainly not the first rapper to be a cover athlete.
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Damian Lillard is by no means the first NBA player to do music on the side. Shaquille O’Neal managed to go platinum with his second studio album, with features from GZA and RZA of Wu-Tang Clan and Phife Dawg. Lillard has had comparably less success, but Cole still gave him his credit.
Dame D.O.L.L.A currently sits at around 200 thousand monthly listeners. He has seven full albums to his name, the most recent of which came out in 2023. Lillard has spoken in the past about how important his music is to him, and it has clearly impressed some members of the industry.
During an interview with Narduwar, the Human Serviette and one of the greatest music journalists ever, Cole called Lillard the greatest NBA rapper ever. In his words, Lillard is “the GOAT of all time basketball player and rapper for sure.”
The former actually sampled the latter’s interview in the song “Punchin’ the Clock” off of Cole’s album “The Offseason.” During the sample, Lillard detailed his game winner over the OKC Thunder in 2019. The shot that infamously ended the Russell Westbrook era Thunder, taken from a ridiculous distance over the outstretched hand of Paul George, was the best moment of Dame’s career.
While Shaq definitely has Lillard beat in terms of selling copies, O’Neal was often a backup singer in his own songs, with his roster full of features taking over the track and letting him do what he does best: entertain. Lillard is often on his own, with very few other artists on his projects.
Beyond those two, LeBron James and Kevin Durant deserve some credit. Despite only ever dropping one song during a lockout, it’s one of the few songs made by an NBA player that you could actually listen to without knowing it came from a basketball player’s afternoon distraction.
Still, the cultures of music and basketball have been intertwined for years and will likely continue to be. Cole will certainly be a part of that interchange, and the question now comes to when he and Lillard will collaborate.
