Last year, a clip of a 2011 rap song featuring lyrics from NBA All-Stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant surfaced on the internet, but the full song was kept under wraps. That is, until now.
Ohio-based producer Franky Wahoo recently released the full song, which was recorded during the 2011 NBA lockout, and spoke with Noisey about the origins of how it came to be and why he decided to release it now. Additionally, Wahoo says that James’ agent, Rich Paul, considered the idea of using it in some capacity in NBA 2K19.
Wahoo tells Noisey, "There was nothing I could do, a lot of celebrities retweeted it, comedians retweeted it, Ellen retweeted it. So I was like, I can’t feel bad now. It kept going viral and Paul finally called back saying “yeah don’t leak it we kinda wanna do something with” it because there’s a 2K game coming out [with LeBron on it] and there are different things we could implement this in without actually putting the track out. So they may have put it in a 2K commercial as background music but they didn’t want the song to be downloadable or streamable."
"So for two years, they went back and forth with me. They’d come up with an angle like “oh we’re gonna try to do it on this blase skit” and weeks of email with them and I’m like “what the hell man.” Then I’d see Cleveland DJs playing it at clubs. So I talk with my manager and he’s like “there’s no paperwork on this that they bought this off you or anything.” The big thing was like one of the friends [of LeBron] that’s a DJ here, we were scared that they were gonna publish [the remake] without crediting me, which could easily happen."
You can listen to the track below.