Essay On Arron Afflalo

Hip-hop and basketball are two cultural phenomena that are tied together in today’s culture. There are many instances of NBA players doubling as rappers, or rappers featuring NBA players in song lyrics. Odds are whenever you see a basketball mixtape, it is more than likely it will have a hip-hop song in the background. But how did this relatively obscure NBA role player, Arron Afflalo, become so well known because of one hip-hop song by Kendrick Lamar? Afflalo, born in 1985, is from the notorious city of Compton, home to the famous Crips and Blood gangs in the 1990s. The same town where many famous basketball players and hip-hop stars grew up such as Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Roddy Rich, DeMar DeRozan, Tyson Chandler, Baron Davis, and of course

Inner cities are “distressed urban and suburban areas of concentrated poverty and low income. Inner city residents represent 45 million people, and of all U.S. residents living in poverty, 31 percent live in inner cities.” (Initiative…). Inner cities like Compton typically had a more diverse racial makeup, with communities comprising mostly African American, Latino, and Asian citizens. During the 1990s, the African American population of Compton took up just more than half of the city's residents (State…). As hip-hop's popularity boomed in the inner cities, basketball was not far behind. “As hip-hop took over the urban playgrounds and courts of America’s inner cities, it was only a matter of time before basketball started producing players from the hip-hop generation.” (Baldwin) This so-called “hip-hop generation” was a name coined to the Fab 5 from Michigan in 1991, and Allen Iverson’s Georgetown Hoyas team in 1994. A whole generation of kids that grew up listening to hip-hop music finally got their chance on a national stage. Both these teams brought a certain swagger to their game, which inspired a whole new generation of young black

Instead of participating in crime, they can focus on other things such as basketball. One example of this is a program called the Midnight Basketball League. The Midnight Basketball League was created because of an observation made by G. Van Standifer. He noticed a few trends in the police reports, “increased criminal activity in summer months, spikes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., and a high number of perpetrators between 17 and 22 years old. With parks closing early, drugs on the streets, and few social services available, Standifer hit upon a diversion. “Opening the gyms at night, it would—one—keep the kids off the street,” says Eric Standifer, the founder’s son. “But for them to participate, they’d also have to participate in some constructive activity. It had to fulfill some need in the community.” In other words: This wouldn’t just be a hoops league” (Niesen). According to Standifer, crime in the neighborhood decreased by 30%, but even this doesn’t tell the full story. In the 1990s, the Midnight Basketball League served more than 10,000 young men annually in nearly 50 cities with high crime rates, and high poverty numbers. The Midnight Basketball League did more than just offer a league to play basketball in. It offered players an opportunity to earn their GEDs and acquire driving licenses. “Even if the statistics didn’t bear out the effectiveness of midnight