The theme of the 2017 NBA Finals, if not the entire playoffs, has been “super teams,” with Kevin Durant’s addition to the already high-powered Warriors appearing to have pushed that squad to a level even the Cavaliers of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love can’t reach. On Monday, we learned that Durant and James once teamed up, albeit to record a rap track, and later we got a tantalizing snippet of that all-NBA collaboration.
ESPN’s Chris Haynes reported that the bars were recorded in 2011, when Durant, then of the Thunder, went to Akron, Ohio, to work out with James, then of the “Not two, not three, not four …” Heat. According to Haynes, there were “no current plans to release the song to the public,” but a Cleveland-area recording studio made a portion of it available on Twitter, promising to post the full track if it got one million retweets.
It certainly sounds like Durant and James, with the two voices going in the order indicated by a source who told Haynes that he “recalls Durant rapping the first verse, James hopping on for the second and then Durant finishing it off.” Of course, there’s also the fact that the second voice says, “It’s the kid, King James,” which would be an odd thing for anyone but the four-time MVP to claim, unless the studio’s tweet is an elaborate hoax.
Advertisement
Assuming it is Durant, he can be heard taking a swipe at a certain hot-take purveyor, formerly of ESPN and now with Fox Sports 1. “And every hater all the same/I’m feeling like the world is Skip Bayless and I’m LeBron James,” goes the first verse we hear.
Durant has certainly clear made his disdain for Bayless, including in 2012, after the pundit had taken him to task on Twitter for training with James and “letting him OWN you.” In a tweet he subsequently deleted, Durant told Bayless, “U brainwashing these people out here, they think since you on espn you know what u talkin bout…please, nobody owns me.”
Bayless, who has also carved out a dubious niche as a persistent critic of James, was again targeted by Durant in 2016, when he reportedly requested that a journalist ask him a question about Bayless at a postseason news conference so he could lambaste the media personality. On the part of the rap track made public, James offered some thoughts about his dedication to completing his difficult “journey”:
Advertisement
“It ain’t easy, on the path I’m on/But keep the world on my back ’cause I’m that strong/
“Long journey I been on from the very start/No way I die off, with this iron heart.”
If it is indeed Durant on the track, it wouldn’t be the first time we heard the 2014 NBA MVP spit some verses. In 2012 — the same year his Thunder fell to James’s Heat in the Finals — Durant appeared on a song by Stephen Jackson, aka “Stak5,” and he had multiple collaborations with an Oklahoma-based rapper, Privaledge.
In 2014, James recorded some verses over a Jay-Z beat, in what his childhood friend, rapper Sian Cotton, told TMZ Sports was a spur-of-the-moment decision. “We were just having fun,” Cotton said. “Bron had jotted some notes down earlier, and he finished his verse in the studio.”
A producer for the 2012 movie “Thunderstruck,” which starred Durant, told Haynes that he had heard the collaboration with James and was impressed enough to suggest it be included in the film’s soundtrack. However, “KD wanted to keep it private,” the producer said.
At this point, even if the studio fails to reach its million retweets, it seems that the full song will inevitably emerge, one way or another. Meanwhile, as we debate where Durant and James rank among noted NBA rappers such as Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Damian Lillard, the Golden State star is doing what he can in the Finals to ensure that James’s path to a fourth ring “ain’t easy.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JonJqqnK56rbHAnWawqF9nfXKDjmltaGhmZMGiutOao6KymaO0br%2FNoqepnaRivKd5kWloamWilr1uv86nnmaaqWK5pq7RqKVmopGisrR5wKebZqOVq7avecOuqZqmpGK2tHnMmpueZaCqr621wmg%3D