Tonight the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James will go up against Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors for the first game of the NBA championship. To get revved up for the series, Music Times has assembled hip-hop songs about each of the respective teams, as few musicians get as amped for their local sports teams as rappers (the number of songs/mixtapes named "Beast Mode" after Marshawn Lynch is astounding). We'll start with the Western Conference and Golden State, representing Oakland and its hyphy hip-hoppers. And no: "CoCo" by O.T. Genasis doesn't count...regardless of how often the team sings it.
"Choices (Yup)" REMIX by E-40
We referenced the "hyphy movement" in hip-hop and its headquarters in the Bay area, and without fail the unofficial head honcho of hyphy, E-40, has blessed his hometown Warriors with a remix of his catchy track "Choices (Yup)." The original was released as part of his Sharp On All Four Corners series last year, and features the emcee giving a sequence of statements, some of which get negative answers ("nope") and others get positives ("yup"). His remixed version takes the same concept and applies it to members of the Warriors' roster. For example, on Curry: "Sloppy with the rock? (nope) / Steph Curry with the shot? (yup)" and Andrew Bogut: "Under pressure is he chokin'? (nope) / Do it big like Bogut? (yup)."
"Get Loud" by Mistah F.A.B.
Sticking with the hyphy theme, no song from the Bay area subgenre is more popular than Mistah F.A.B.'s 2008 smash "Ghost Ride It," a tribute to the process of dancing on/around one's car while leaving it in drive. The Golden State Warriors aren't about to throw themselves behind such an activity but they were more than happy to let the hometown hero write a song to mark the team's trip to the playoffs during 2014 (well before they jumped to the best record in the league this year). The song, unlike the squad's favorite track ("CoCo"), was openly promoted by the team as its official playoff anthem. The track is interspersed with cuts of color commentary celebrating the team's best moments from the season.
"Protect Our Ground" by Marshall Payne
If the Warriors win the championship, their long-suffering fans will have earned it. After all, the team was among the league's laughingstock for the majority of the two decades leading up to 2013. Oakland rapper Marshall Payne references how many seasons started "0-and-eight" during his 2013 playoff anthem "Protect Our Ground," but praised his fellow Warriors fans for sticking around through all the tough times, citing that year's new ownership and new coach as the beginning of a new era. He also takes time to celebrate the team's season, again bringing attention to the continued rise of Steph Curry: "Steph Curry's got skills with the pill, just ask George Hill how he feels...ouch" as a clip of the point guard breaking the Pacers' forward's ankles plays.
"Warriors" by C.I.U.
Granted, Payne wasn't the only hip-hop act excited by the team's emergence in the playoffs during 2013. Payne's song didn't get the Warriors organization's "official" status but this track by C.I.U. did. It's almost more appropriate for the 2015 championship, as the combination of rap and R&B is reminiscent of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony...more or less the biggest hip-hop act in the history of Cleveland. C.I.U.'s approach is less about swag than a made-to-order anthem for the theoretical Disney movie made about the team's unlikely 2013 NBA championship. That didn't happen of course, but now that the team has the best record in basketball, the call of "we came too far to turn back now" may be more appropriate.
Existence...by Lil B
It's interesting to note that the most relevant rapper in NBA history, despite coming from the Bay area and being a Warriors fan, has never written a song about his hometown team. Perhaps he doesn't need to. Lil B has potentially altered the last several seasons with his will. He gathered attention during 2011, when he called out Kevin Durant, who had referred to the emcee as a bad rapper. The Based God claimed that until Durant agreed to play him in a game of "21," he would never get an NBA championship. That came to fruition almost instantly, as Durant's Oklahoma City Thunder fell to the Miami Heat during 2012. Then James Harden, an MVP-caliber player on the Houston Rockets (playing against the Warriors in the Western Conference championship) replicated B's "cooking dance." All he had to do, B claimed, was cite the rapper for inventing it. Harden didn't, and his team was squashed 4-1. Now all Cleveland can do is hope and pray. Cavalier forward Iman Shumpert even reached out to Lil B via Twitter to potentially dissuade any curse work.
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