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He has now joined a surprisingly sturdy listing of well-known basketball gamers who rap, largely mediocrely: Allen Iverson, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Damian Lillard, the celebs on the customarily awkward 1994 compilation “B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret.” It’s straightforward to listen to “Tweaker” as a form of comfort prize, a distraction for Ball whereas his brothers accumulate N.B.A. glory.
And but. “Tweaker” is deceptively lo-fi and unwieldy, however instantly efficient — artwork passing as a joke.
The refrain is completely formed, if somewhat slang-by-numbers. Though Ball hails from Southern California, his vocal strategy, and the accompanying manufacturing, are redolent of the pressing and generally clunky New Orleans rap music popularized by No Limit Records within the late Nineteen Nineties (later streamlined by Cash Money Records), in addition to the bouncier and fewer antic facet of Nineteen Nineties Memphis rap. These are kinds the place the martial stomp of the circulation is as essential because the phrases themselves, or extra. (“I ain’t from the South, however kick it with my Memphis twin,” Ball raps on “Tweaker.”)
On the verses, Ball’s vocals are much less surly, somewhat extra shrieked and fewer convincing. Sometimes it appears like he’s herding extra syllables than house permits. The beat is constructed round a piano determine that sounds unintended, or drunk, prefer it was performed with chubby fingers, including to the tune’s air of legitimate-illegitimate uncertainty.
Nevertheless, “Tweaker” has impressed real fervor, presumably some mixture of real and opportunistic. The Baton Rouge veteran Lil Boosie and the Memphis star Moneybagg Yo each nudged Ball about potential collaborations on X. And Ball was rapidly booked for the March installment of the influential hip-hop competition Rolling Loud.
Rarely has a brand new artist so successfully (and deliberately?) used the fashionable distribution system of livestreaming to garner an preliminary buzz, after which constructed one thing sturdy upon that weird flash of consideration. Last 12 months demonstrated simply how damaged the star-making equipment in hip-hop has change into. There are not any dependable methods anymore — not the radio, not streaming companies, not TikTok, not the streets.
Instead, there’s this: a contented accident on the intersection of flagging movie star and incidental notoriety. Seemingly, Ball has accomplished the virtually impossible-to-nail pachinko that finally ends up with a potential smash. “Tweaker” is an earnest try. It’s a stunt. It’s a gaffe. It’s a Hail Mary. It’s a meme. It’s successful.
