I have a feeling I’ll be taking a lot of stuff from SLAM Online, so I’m going to link to them in every post I make to show my appreciation. They have this great series of posts called “For Old Time’s Sake,” which is where I found the J-Kidd mixtape yesterday and where I found this Spree video today. Growing up in New York with a Knicks fan for a twin brother, I can attest to Sprewell’s underratedness in today’s NBA fanscape (you see that? Two words made up in the same sentence. He’s heating up!).
As evidence by the video, Spree was an explosive finisher, with trademark two-handed tomahawk slams. His legacy was enhanced to legendary proportions tainted by choking out his coach, P.J. Carlesimo, signifying the end to his career in Oakland, but experienced a rebirth as a less athletic, but more dominant scorer in MSG, culminating with a run in the late ’90s and early ’00s where he became one of the preeminent closers in the NBA game. His career fell off quickly after he signed with the Timberwolves for $21 million, then infamously demanded for more money so he could “feed my family.”
Craziness and volatility notwithstanding, Spree had skills. Same could be said about Big L. A career cut tragically short when he was murdered in 1999. Only releasing one album when he was alive, he’s achieved mythical status in Harlem, an MC who never had the chance to sell out or fall off. He only had about 40 tracks recorded or released during his lifetime and posthumously, but his lyrical ability, flow, and emotion came through in all of them. He worked with Jay-Z before Reasonable Doubt, he worked with Fat Joe and Cam’Ron before they blew up, and outshone them all on the tracks they appeared together.
That’s a Big L track in the video above, though L himself only has one verse in the song. Big L’s downfall, both commercially and in his life, was that he rapped the truth. His rhymes were a little too rough for the mainstream (why Columbia dropped him from their label after his debut album), and the life he rapped about caught up to him on Feb. 15, 1999.
Big L is a crazy brother, and I’m a lady lover/A smooth kid that’ll run up in your baby mother
Str8 Ballin' 