The same applies for when players take control of Kareem or Magic and are faced with the vibrant and loud Technicolor gamecasts of the 1980s. While playing as Bill Russell, gamers will have to adjust their strategy to not include the three-point shot and also adapt to the grainy black and white presentation and the horrific short-shorts of yesteryear. Each player has his own unique matchup against another legendary team (which also becomes unlocked after winning) and the entire presentation is era-specific. Ranging from Bill Russell to Hakeem Olajuwon, every era of NBA basketball is represented in the NBAвЂ™s Greatest mode. Taking last yearвЂ™s wildly successful and popular Jordan Challenge mode, 2K Sports expanded its legends roster to include 15 of the best player to ever grace the hardwood. But chances are even if they did, he would emerge to find a stage, kick a hole in the speaker, pull the plug and jet.LetвЂ™s start with NBAвЂ™s Greatest. If everyone who has become wealthy at the intersection of basketball and hip-hop tithed one percent of their earnings to Kurtis Blow, he could live out his days in a platinum palace. In other words, none of the NBA/hip-hop empire building happens-or at the very least none of it happens the way we remember it happening-without the skills of Kurtis Blow. It also led to what has happened all too often when black music and corporate America meet: exploitation, with everyone except the people who created the art form becoming wealthy. But the idea that basketball and the sneaker industry could ride a black musical form devised just a few years earlier in the South Bronx to global domination must have seemed laughable then. From David SternвЂ™s marketing gurus to NikeвЂ™s high-top engineers designing the first Air Jordan later that very same year, they saw that this league-which as recently as 1979 was showing its finals on tape delay-could define вЂњcoolвЂќ in the 1980s and beyond. But вЂњBasketballвЂќ didnвЂ™t just alter how we all saw the game.

Kurtis BlowвЂ™s Harlem was going global and David SternвЂ™s game was the vehicle. The synthesis of Kurtis Blow, and the exploding popularity of the NBA, was unwittingly turning a generation of young people onto hip-hop. And once I learned about Run-D.M.C., I was all in and hardly alone. In the process, I became enamored with other tracks on the record, including the classic вЂњAJ ScratchвЂќ and one of the first singles to communicate the reality of black urban life in the Reagan вЂ™80s, вЂњ8 Million Stories,вЂќ with its refrain: вЂњ8 million stories in the naked city, some ice cold and told without pity.вЂќ That track featured an MC who started his career as вЂњSon of Kurtis Blow,вЂќ DJ Run of Run-D.M.C. I bought BlowвЂ™s album Ego Trip on my 10th birthday just to listen to вЂњBasketball,вЂќ then rewind it and listen again.

It led many young kids-myself included-to discover hip-hop. Stern had вЂњBasketballвЂќ used in promotional videos and it has remained central to the League, later heard by a new generation on the soundtrack of NBA 2K12.Д«ut the NBAвЂ™s acceptance and promotion of Kurtis BlowвЂ™s вЂњBasketballвЂќ had greater ramifications than just some marketing tie-ins. вЂњBasketballвЂќ marked the beginning of the extremely lucrative and at times very uneasy collaboration between the NBA and hip-hop. The song not only traveled to a broad audience well beyond BlowвЂ™s native Harlem, it was embraced by someone who worked just a couple miles but several worlds away: new NBA Commissioner David Stern. Kurtis Blow was a crossover rap hit single at a time when those were few and far between.

But even without the Jordan marketing magic, вЂњBasketballвЂќ by Mr. To give a sense about what a historic pivot point in hoops history this was, there is no mention of a promising rookie named Michael Jordan. The year вЂњBasketballвЂќ was released, the League was just beginning its meteoric rise from moribund status, with Magic and Bird having just faced off for the first time in the NBA finals.

In 1984, Blow dropped вЂњBasketball.вЂќ ItвЂ™s a celebration of the gameвЂ™s past and present, referencing everyone from Magic and Bird to Willis Reed, вЂњEarl the PearlвЂќ and вЂњNumber 33, my man Kareem is the center on my starting team.вЂќ He rapped, вЂњTell me if you were in the joint, the night Wilt scored 100 points.вЂќ Without Kurtis Blow, itвЂ™s safe to say not only that hip-hop as we know it wouldnвЂ™t exist, but perhaps the league we know wouldnвЂ™t exist, either. Even though-and perhaps especially because-the seminal, trailblazing 1980s rap icon still walks among us, itвЂ™s worth appreciating all heвЂ™s meant to not only rap music but also to hoops. He survived and is already back on tour, rocking mics for as long as you like. On October 29, legendary 57-year-old rap icon Kurtis Blow went into cardiac arrest, his pulse stopping for five minutes.

Kurtis blow basketball 2k12