Hip hop music more so than any other style is defined regionally. Not only are the sounds and words emblematic of the area in which the artist is from but hip hop musicians take great pride in where they grew up. The 90’s was defined by a west coast versus east coast feud but it is much deeper and more nuanced than that. Atlanta, Texas, Bay Area, Chicago all have such unique sounds that any avid listener can here a song and approximate the area in which the artist grew up. Obviously with that sort of provincial attitude you get rappers repping where they are from and what better way than with the local NBA team. More and more teams are reciprocating that love these days as hip hop is as mainstream as it has ever been. With the NBA playoffs in full swing let’s take a look at the rappers that not only define their respective cities but also are most likely to be sitting courtside at the playoffs this year.
Eastern Conference
Cleveland Cavaliers
Machine Gun Kelly is a native of Cleveland and has been spotted courtside many times over the past few years.
Toronto Raptors
The Raptors went as far as to name Drake a global ambassador for their brand. He is a bit of a front runner though, showing up at Golden State and Cleveland games over the past few years.
Miami Heat
Although FloRida would consider himself to be the face of Miami Heat hip hop, we’re going to give it to the Snapchatter of the year, they don’t want him to be the face of #heatnation but he is, DJ Khaled.
Atlanta Hawks
So many great artists to choose from that represent the Hawks hard but TI is at most of the home games and even has a relationship with the ownership group.
Boston Celtics
Boston hasn’t produced a lot of prominent hip hop acts over the years but up and comer Mike Stud is always in Celtics gear and has some pretty Celtic centric verses in his songs.
Charlotte Hornets
More in the R & B realm but still a fixture on a few very popular hip hop songs, Anthony Hamilton loves his hometown Hornets.
Indiana Pacers
Freddie Gibbs proudly represents Gary, IN and the Pacers. Taking great delight in one of his verses extolling the virtues of Reggie Miller.
Detroit Pistons
Although he doesn’t make a ton of public appearances these days, Eminem has always put Detroit on his chest and if they make a run against the Cavs, we wouldn’t be surprised if he popped up at center court.
Western Conference
Golden State Warriors
Seemingly everybody wants to be associated with the best regular season team ever but E 40 has been there since the beginning.
San Antonio Spurs
Tough to find too many rappers out of San Antonio right now but we’ll give to former Spur turned rapper, the trillest, S JAX, aka Stephen Jackson.
Oklahoma City Thunder
Another city that hasn’t produced a ton of recognizable hip hop talent, we had to cheat a little bit with this one. Jay Z’s agency actually represents Kevin Durant so we’ll probably being seeing Jay and Beyonce on the floor by the 2nd round.
Los Angeles Clippers
One of the best follows on Twitter and a talented MC to boot, Vince Staples has proudly expressed his appreciation for LA’s other basketball team since he’s had a platform to do so.
Portland Trailblazers
We’re going to let Dame Dolla represent himself here.
Dallas Mavericks
The Dirty South Rydaz are legends in Dallas’ emerging hip hop scene and have often been known to perform with Nowitzki jerseys on.
Memphis Grizzlies
Memphis is another city that has many options but we’ll pick Three Six Mafia for the ambassador slot because who doesn’t want Three Six Mafia representing them.
Houston Rockets
Slim Thug represents Houston to the fullest and in addition to going to games and recording songs for in game entertainment he also has taken to twitter in the off season to recruit potential free agents, going above and beyond duty for the hip hop representative of Houston.
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