The NBA season is 18 days away, and the league decided Friday would be the perfect time get fans amped for tip-off.
A new pump-up video — "EVERYBODY UP (Roll Call)" — features rapper Common spitting some spoken word over a vast assortment of highlights and advertorial scenes.
"Let me see you fantasy owners, tweeters, blog readers, gamers, game-timers," he says.
The NBA season opens Oct. 28 when the San Antonio Spurs host the Dallas Mavericks on TNT, followed by a nightcap featuring the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets.
Common's father, Lonnie Lynn, passed away in mid-September.
Hip-hop heads are familiar with Lynn's spoken word work on several Common (given name: Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr.) albums. From the AP release:
Lynn was a star high school basketball player in Chicago and played in the 1969-1970 season in the American Basketball Association. He struggled with drug addiction and with being a father to six children, topics he addressed in poignant, sometimes regretful poems that concluded many of Common's albums.
"He was truly a natural poet and master of words," Common said. "His personality and soul shined through his work.
"The way he said things made me look at life and the world in a new way, in a different way. They always sparked a thought in my head. His words would always make me strive to achieve higher, to write better, to be more truthful with my words."
The article references the song "Pops Belief," which focuses on Lynn, Sr.'s impact.
"For those of us who come from less than enviable circumstances, dreams - good dreams, sweet dreams - dreams come true. Truthful dreams, truthful dreams become life," Common raps. "Live the life you believe."
