In my formative business years while working at Immortal Records in Los Angeles, I had a unique experience as an A&R person to conceptualize and executive produce an album featuring NBA Players as rappers in a now infamous moment in Sports History. The album, “B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret” sold about 10 records and I bought 5 (wink), but was important for more than just the album sales. For me I got the opportunity to spend time with and know 12 NBA Players who in turn wanted me to help them understand the music business. It setup some very interesting relationships with both players and the NBA that I maintain today.
One of the relationships I cherish the most from that album was with the late Malik Sealy. Malik at the time was playing for the Indiana Pacers and contributed to the album as an “MC” but what I got out of that relationship was so much more then his song. Malik had this very smart and very demanding “assistant” Raqiba who turned out to be his sister. I so enjoyed my time going back and forth with this persistent young lady that when I became Sr. Director of Marketing at Columbia Records in NYC I hired her as my assistant. …
This is from an album called “B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret” that I conceptualized and executive produced in the early 90’s. I paired together 12 NBA Players with 12 Hip Hop producers for hip hop/sports history. It was an amazing project to be involved with. We sold 10 records, I bought 5 (LOL) but it was a lot of fun to work on. This song was produced by Warren G and was the first video. This is a classic find for me. In the video is my friend and Cedric Ceballos junior college basketball teammate Leland “Pookey” Wigington.
