'Well Bo Knows This, And Bo Knows That...'

'...But Bo don't know jack, 'cause Bo can't rap'. One of my favorite things about hip-hop music is it's constant crossover into the athletic world for the sake of wordplay. And when you think about, the long standing relationship between sports and hip-hop makes perfect sense. Both exhibit hyper-competitive individuals set on displaying they are the best at what they do. And as I gear up to catch my first Detroit Tigers spring training game of 2010 on the radio I really got to thinking about two things. Just who among the several overpaid candidates will fill out the bottom of the Tigers rotation and the close knit relationship between sports and hip-hop.

Of course, there are varying degrees of sports in hip-hop. It can be as simple as comparing yourself to a great athlete (or comparing a lyrical opponent to a terrible athlete). It can also be a short punch line to serve as a point of reference to the listener, such as when Big L rapped:

And everytime I’m in a jam I always find a loophole,

 I got a crime record longer than Manute Bol.

In this case, Big L stating his crime record is longer than a 7'6'' man immediately let's the listener know that Big L has one very long crime record and is therefore a very bad man. However, it doesn't stop there. Hip-hop has even had forays into the extended sports metaphor with my personal favorite being Main Source- A Friendly Game Of Baseball, which compares police brutality to our nation's past time. 

There are a few rather uniform sports references that need to be addressed, so uniform that by the mere mention of them immediately conjures up a specific image in the listener. The greatest example of this is a rapper comparing himself to Michael Jordan such as Jay-Z did when he said he's 'The Michael Jordan of Recordin' which suggests he is the best there ever was. 

You want to display how quick you are? Around the '90's you probably would have made a Jeff Gordon or even a Mario Andretti reference would do, which is what the Tribe did when they claimed in Award Tour: 'Lyrically, I'm Mario Andretti on the Momo'. Of other note in 'Award Tour' is one of my personal favorite baseball related lines: 'Comin' with more hits than the Braves and the Yankees'. Ah, the 1990's. When the Braves were a dominant force and the Yankees were just burgeoning into the purely evil force they would soon become. 

Now, if you want to dish out the ultimate insult to your opponent, a sports reference can handle that too. Just mention how your opponent is ugly like Sam Cassell and you're all set. This is such a definitive reference it can apply to much more than an opponents physical attractiveness. He's just that ugly. 

Of course, the rap-sports exchange can go both ways. From Shaq Diesel released four studio albums to Ron Artest stating he wanted to take time off from the NBA to work on his rap career, NBA players have always returned the infatuation. Normally it results in some abomination in which sports references go into overload as they are about the actual rapper. Shaq Diesel is no exception. 

Of course this is just an abbreviated summation of the relationship between sports and hip-hop music. They often overlap with athletes wishing to be rappers and rappers wishing to be athletes. Normally this relationship produces vivid visual imagery (such as with Sam Cassell) but when the two crossover, proceed with extreme caution.