The Witzard

Let's face it, nearly any avid supporter of either basketball or Hip-Hop can likely attest to the beloved genre and stadium-filling sport's frequent cross-sectional analogies and often unexpected collaborations; be it Skee-Lo 's 1995 Buffalo Springfield -interpolating "I Wish," Action Bronson 's sprawling genre-defying Blue Chips series, Jurassic 5 's trunk-rattling "What's Golden," or somewhat less favorable Michael Jordan & Bugs Bunny -helmed Space Jam soundtrack, Shaq 's head-scratching Kazaam soundtrack, or Kobe Bryant 's short-lived rap "career." Hip-Hop 's latest rhyme-laden page added to the NBA 's ever-growing playbook is brought to you by none other than Philly 's finest Legendary Hard-working Roots Crew and Jimmy Fallon 's long-time Tonight Show Band . The Roots seemingly penned "Champion" specifically for inclusion as the official 2016 NBA Finals Theme Song and in retrospe...

Let me just preface this week's slightly abridged edition of The Witzard's Week In Rap by first explaining that while I could be covering Kanye 's "newly updated, remixed, and remastered version" of haphazardly-assembled steaming pile of s*it The Life of Pablo , I'm not even going to be giving his second of what could likely end up being umpteenth mixes, recently dubbed a "continuous process" by Def Jam , the sheer satisfaction of even buying into and covering it; however, with that said, his Sampha -assisted "Saint Pablo" (formerly titled "Closest Thing to Einstein" ) from his second of three rumored in-the-works albums, Turbo Grafx 16 , is likely as strong, lyrically verbose, and dare I say, self-reflective as Kanye 's sounded since Jay Z -helmed Watch The Throne or even 808's & Heartbreak . For what it's worth, a couple contenders for "honorable mentions" released sporadically throughout the week s...