Songfacts®:

• Many rap songs are filled with references to basketball, but very few are about the sport itself. "Basketball" by Kurtis Blow is the most famous.
  
  The song is a tribute to the NBA, with shout-outs to the legends of the game (Bill Russell, Rick Barry) and some of the stars who were in the league at the time (Larry Bird, Moses Malone).
  
  Kurtis Blow is a huge fan and had a lot of fun writing the lyric. Note that there's not much boasting - the song is all about the players and the game. Many of his songs - and many early rap songs, for that matter - had a lighthearted party vibe.
• Over the years, many basketball players have tried to rap (Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant), and some rappers have even tried basketball (Master P, Snoop Dogg). This was the first song that made a strong connection between basketball and rap.
• Kurtis Blow is from New York City, so he's a Knicks fan, but he just loves the game. "The Lakers, the Knicks, the Nets - I like so many of them," he told Songfacts. "I like San Antonio, I like Sacramento, I like Houston. But I've been a fan all my life. I remember the ABA, when Dr. J was playing for the Nets."
• Thanks to the "showtime" Lakers and their rivalry with the Boston Celtics, the NBA was popular in the mid-'80s, but teams like the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks that didn't have stars were having a hard time drawing fans. To goose attendance at these games, the NBA would sometimes have Kurtis Blow do shows after the games, which usually packed the arenas. This was a great experience for Kurtis, who got to meet players like George Gervin (The Iceman), Dr. J and Dominique Wilkins.
• The voice that says, "Now rapping 'Basketball,' Number 1, Kurtis Blow," is John Condon, who was the announcer for the New York Knicks. He also appears in the video.
• This was one of the first rap songs to use a drum machine - a Linndrum programmed by Jimmy Bralower. A year later, Kurtis and his producer, J.B. Moore, got their hands on a Fairlight digital sampler and released the first rap song with a sample loop: "If I Ruled The World." Over the next few years, it became common in hip-hop to combine sample loops with drum machines to create the tracks.
• A video with cheerleaders, mascots, and (for some reason) kung-fu was made for this song. It was possibly the first rap video that didn't rely on concert footage, although that distinction might go to "Rock Box" by Run-DMC, also released in 1984.
• "Basketball" was released on Kurtis Blow's fifth album, Ego Trip. He was the first rapper signed to a major label, Mercury Records, so he had more promotional might behind him than most rappers. Around this time, the Def Jam label was getting started, with acts like LL Cool J and Run-DMC on the roster.
• The female vocalists are Alyson Williams and Audrey Wheeler. Williams ended up recording as a solo artist, releasing her first album, Raw, in 1989.
• Lil Bow Wow recorded a new version for the 2002 movie Like Mike, where he starred as a 14-year-old who joins the NBA after finding a pair of magic sneakers that give him tremendous game.
• This was released as a single with another basketball song, "(It's) The Game" by Ralph MacDonald, as the B-side.