\n<\/p>\n
He has now joined a surprisingly robust list of well-known basketball players who rap, mostly mediocrely: Allen Iverson, Shaquille O\u2019Neal, Kobe Bryant, Damian Lillard, the stars on the often awkward 1994 compilation \u201cB-Ball\u2019s Best Kept Secret.\u201d It\u2019s easy to hear \u201cTweaker\u201d as a kind of consolation prize, a distraction for Ball while his brothers accumulate N.B.A. glory.<\/p>\n
And yet. \u201cTweaker\u201d is deceptively lo-fi and unwieldy, but directly effective \u2014 art passing as a joke.<\/p>\n
The chorus is perfectly shaped, if a little slang-by-numbers. Though Ball hails from Southern California, his vocal approach, and the accompanying production, are redolent of the urgent and sometimes clunky New Orleans rap music popularized by No Limit Records in the late 1990s (later streamlined by Cash Money Records), as well as the bouncier and less antic side of 1990s Memphis rap. These are styles where the martial stomp of the flow is as important as the words themselves, or more. (\u201cI ain\u2019t from the South, but kick it with my Memphis twin,\u201d Ball raps on \u201cTweaker.\u201d)<\/p>\n
On the verses, Ball\u2019s vocals are less surly, a little more shrieked and less convincing. Sometimes it sounds like he\u2019s herding more syllables than space allows. The beat is built around a piano figure that sounds accidental, or drunk, like it was played with chubby fingers, adding to the song\u2019s air of legitimate-illegitimate uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, \u201cTweaker\u201d has inspired genuine fervor, presumably some combination of genuine and opportunistic. The Baton Rouge veteran Lil Boosie and the Memphis star Moneybagg Yo<\/a> both nudged Ball about potential collaborations on X. And Ball was quickly booked for the March installment of the influential hip-hop festival Rolling Loud.<\/p>\n Rarely has a new artist so effectively (and intentionally?) used the modern distribution system of livestreaming to garner an initial buzz, and then built something sturdy upon that bizarre flash of attention. Last year demonstrated just how broken the star-making apparatus in hip-hop<\/a> has become. There are no reliable systems anymore \u2014 not the radio, not streaming services, not TikTok, not the streets.<\/p>\n Instead, there\u2019s this: a happy accident at the intersection of flagging celebrity and incidental notoriety. Seemingly, Ball has completed the almost impossible-to-nail pachinko that ends up with a possible smash. \u201cTweaker\u201d is an earnest attempt. It\u2019s a stunt. It\u2019s a gaffe. It\u2019s a Hail Mary. It\u2019s a meme. It\u2019s a hit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n