Hype: Under the Boards
Posted on January 24, 2007 by David
So a friend is about to go to press (U of Nebraska to be precise) with his racial analysis of the NBA. Here’s an excerpt:
Regardless of one’s familiarity with hip-hop, the 2Pac-Biggie saga made it unequivocally clear that hip-hop existed on two planes: on the one hand, it was a cultural and commercial powerhouse that had captivated an enormous audience that ranged across the color spectrum; on the other hand, it was a combustible force bound to the underworld and the impoverished streets from which it had been spawned. In hip-hop, the NBA had a new cultural location, image, and marketing direction to carry it, as a gradually declining Jordan, who had made the NBA into a major international entity, headed toward retirement. Whether Commissioner Stern and the league brass desired such changes is uncertain, but it is extremely unlikely. For them the challenge of managing the infusion of hip-hop, which inaugurated the arrival of pro basketball’s new class of young stars, was akin to playing with fire: handle it right and it would power the NBA into the new millennium; manage it wrong and it would burn down the house that Stern, Magic, Bird, and Jordan had built.
