Before Kendrick Lamar eyed Super Bowl shows, Compton basketball was an inspiration

New York Times

06-02-2025

In the dusty, crinkling California sunlight during the early 2000s, on the Centennial High School campus in Compton, Calif., an upperclassman sold a bootleg CD to a younger, eager rap fan.
The seller? Arron Afflalo, who would become an All-American basketball player at UCLA and play 11 seasons in the NBA.
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The buyer? Kendrick Duckworth, who would later be known to the world as Kendrick Lamar, a singular presence in hip-hop who will headline the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans on Sunday.
There's no tectonic movement or sudden magic that announced this connection. Just a scribbled, clandestine entry into Compton's rich folklore.
'If you wanted a CD, all my schoolmates came to me,' said Afflalo, who is two years older than the rap star and Pulitzer Prize winner. 'I think I sold Kendrick either (Jay-Z's) 'Reasonable Doubt' or a Hot Boys mixtape.'
A 'Neighborhood Superstar' indeed, Kendrick Lamar ascends to football's biggest stage Sunday at Caesars Superdome. His connection to the sports multiverse is long-standing and hyper-local. The Compton native hung out with the Los Angeles Rams during their 2016 training camp. He was courtside for Kobe Bryant's 60-point send-off. He met Deyra Barrera, the mariachi singer featured throughout his latest album, 'GNX,' during the World Series at Dodger Stadium.
Before all of that, he was viscerally inspired by the basketball players repping his city. It's something he readily admitted on 'Black Boy Fly,' a somber, deep cut from Lamar's 2012 album 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.'
I used to be jealous of Arron Afflalo. He was the one to follow.
He was the only leader foreseeing brighter tomorrows.
He would live in the gym. We was living in sorrow.
Total envy of him. He made his dream become a reality.
Actually making it possible to swim.
His way up outta Compton with further more to accomplish.
Graduate with honors, a sponsor of basketball scholars.
It's 2004, and I'm watching him score 30.
Remember vividly how them victory points had hurt me.
'Cause every basket was a reaction or a reminder.
That we was just moving backwards, the bungalow where you find us.
Afflalo, who played for six NBA teams, was with the Orlando Magic when that verse dropped. He had no clue what was happening, disarmed as his phone erupted and the locker room buzzed. He connected with Lamar and fellow Top Dawg Entertainment aspirant Jay Rock early in their touring careers. They'd talk about mutual friends from high school, the labyrinth of Compton and life in the industry beyond city limits.
"I used to be jealous of Arron Afflalo" -Kendrick Lamar
Check out Afflalo's 2013-2014 highlight reel! pic.twitter.com/XuR7Iw1N0y
— Be Magic Or Be Gone!  (@BeORLMagic) July 26, 2017
The 27th pick of the 2007 NBA Draft by the Detroit Pistons, Afflalo had a silken jump shot and a sterling reputation around the league, but he never made an NBA All-Star Game or moved jerseys wholesale.
But to Lamar, Compton neighbors and peers at Centennial, he was still more important than Michael Jordan.
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'You're not aware of that in the moment,' Afflalo said. 'You're focused on your passion and your pursuit of something great. But that's the beauty of it: You never know who is watching you and how inspired they are.'
Afflalo wasn't the only hooper Lamar looked up to. As the nascent emcee put together a business plan for one of his first mixtapes, he sought investors who had respect in Compton. The pitch went to Josh Childress, a high-flyer who grew up in Compton and ultimately played for the Atlanta Hawks, Phoenix Suns, Brooklyn Nets and New Orleans Pelicans.
The pitch, however, went unsuccessfully.
'At that age, my brother was my gatekeeper, so to speak,' Childress recalled with a laugh. 'So many people were sending us deals, business opportunities, all that. Kendrick's pitch never even made it to me. My brother kicks himself to this day.'
The eight-year NBA veteran — four years older than the rapper — loves Lamar's constant sonic evolution, from backpacking griot to jazz experimentalist to global hitmaker. But the true defining element, Childress said, is Lamar's authenticity and integrity in centering Compton. His Record of the Year acceptance speech during Sunday's Grammy Awards served as a reminder.
The historic allure of their city comes from so many angles. Compton became a bastion for Black achievement in postwar America. It was a battlefield for Reaganomics. It canonized gangsta rap and set aesthetic watermarks for skaters and cowboys alike. Compton yields uncompromising superstars like Dr. Dre, the late Eazy-E and N.W.A., as well as Venus and Serena Williams. But right now, no one is consecrating it quite like Lamar.
'Not Like Us' has become a compulsory stadium soundtrack and pregame hype music. (It also won five Grammys on Sunday.) It is immeasurably enormous, topping the Billboard Hot 100 and, perhaps, defining a new epoch of popular culture.
The entire album is a thoroughly Compton endeavor, reaching everyone from Comptonite DeMar DeRozan to Tam's Burgers No. 21, a popular comfort-food spot in the city.
DeMar DeRozan on Kendrick Lamar's new album pic.twitter.com/M1IN3sDLom
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) November 23, 2024
'He's continued to show intellectual curiosity for the world around him, but he's done it in a way that Compton is proud of,' Childress said. 'If you peel back the layers of his artistry, everything's consistent with the fabric of this city. Compton cuts across so many different cultures, and he's always shown up for the city in a way I can really appreciate.'
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It's all surreal for Siete7x, a Compton singer — and dedicated Philadelphia Eagles fan — featured on the 'GNX' track 'Dodger Blue.' That song is a tribute to Angeleno excellence south of the Interstate 10 highway, the parts of the city seldom seen on national broadcasts.
'This is real motivation, I feel it in my heart. Other states just see us beefing with each other, but he's showing us how it can all come together,' he said. 'And Compton really, really loves football. Any given Sunday, any different section, you'll see all the homies together watching the NFL. Every neighborhood and every corner of Compton will be happy for Kendrick on Sunday.'
'The teams here are really embracing the rap culture lately,' added Peysoh, a rapper who appears on the 'GNX' title track. He was stunned to hear the Dodger Stadium organist play the 'Not Like Us' beat during a game this summer.
It goes even further at Lakers games, where the instrumentals of 'GNX' tracks 'Hey Now,' 'Wacced Out Murals,' 'TV Off' and 'Squabble Up' soundtrack LeBron James as he brings the ball up the floor.
Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show will instantly dominate our public squares, but it's also going to galvanize young viewers who didn't recognize any of this the way Afflalo's 30-point game transformed a cherubic Lamar two decades prior. The Super Bowl is firmly entrenched in rap's public imagination, but more as an evocation of triumph and falling confetti.
Now, it's a real place and an achievable destination — with Compton plastered across the marquee.
'From afar, I'm just excited to watch,' Afflalo said. 'The fact that he stays humble and represents the city that raised him … honestly, the tables have turned, in a way. I'm appreciative of him now. He's an inspiration here, a wonderful story, a global success.
'Hopefully, I go on and do things with the rest of my life that makes him proud of the song that connects us.'
(Top photo of Kendrick Lamar: Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images for Cash App)