The following pitch was accepted by GQ, and resulted in this article.
Hi [editor’s name],
I have a pitch for GQ:
This April will mark the 15th anniversary of the release of NBA Street Vol. 2. Unlike other basketball video games, Vol. 2 framed basketball not simply as a sport played in identical, sanitized arenas across the country, but as a vital cultural institution with its own history, music, and sense of place. Surprisingly little has been written about the game, and it deserves to be commemorated. A more pure representation of the joy and expressive elements of basketball has never been made.
I have already interviewed music industry vet Jensen Karp, who served as a consultant for Vol. 2; he shared great stories about flying up to EA’s campus in Vancouver with Just Blaze and a pre-GRODT 50 Cent (Canada wouldn’t let 50 into the country due to priors), seeing the Rucker Park-inspired mood boards that the “Canadian nerd white dudes” had mocked up, and his suggestion to make Pete Rock and CL Smooth’s “They Reminisce Over You” — itself an exercise in memory and nostalgia — the theme song to underscore the game’s identity as a “golden era” throwback. Bobbito Garcia and Just Blaze have both agreed to be interviewed as well. I have also reached out to Pete Rock, CL Smooth, and EA music supervisor Steve Schnur.
In this piece, I will explore the various ways in which hip hop shapes the game’s personality, from Garcia’s color commentary to Just Blaze’s original beats to the inclusion of all five St. Lunatics as unlockable characters. I will explain how the game brings into the fold the mythical elements of NYC’s rich streetball history (e.g. the time Joe “The Destroyer” Hammond put up 50 on Julius Erving in one half at Rucker) and buys into the city’s reputation as twin mecca for hoops and hip hop. I will touch on the parallel rise of AND1’s popular hoop mixtapes and the traits that differentiate Vol. 2 from NBA Jam and other (lesser) installments of the NBA Streetseries. On a personal level, I will briefly revisit how the Vol. 2 soundtrack steered my 12-year-old taste in music away from Linkin Park and towards underground rap.
I will argue that Vol. 2 compares favorably to NBA 2K18, the “game of record,” which I also own. 2K18 aspires to verisimilitude in both gameplay and real-time updates, often to its own detriment. It is an overproduced quagmire that forces the player to sit through a pregame national anthem and studio halftime analysis. 15 years later, Vol. 2 still feels fresh and exhilarating, simple and imaginative. It is an ode to basketball as spectacle, as art, as cultural lynchpin. It is the feeling of Shareef Adbur-Rahim breaking his foes’ ankles in quick succession before levitating to the hoop for a triumphant Honey Dip. That feeling never grows old.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.