There are a handful of Michigan rappers who can work in clever lines about David Stern, Shane Battier and Sallie Mae all in the same verse. And there are a handful of NBA players whose dunks leave their team’s play-by-play guy speaking in tongues. Miles Bridges is the only person in world history who can do both.
It might just be semantic nit-picking, but Miles Bridges is a rapper and an NBA player rather than just a rapping NBA player. Whereas NBA rappers have traditionally either penned toothless club “bangers” or 90s boom-bap schmaltz about the virtue of hard work or something like that, Bridges makes songs that don't sound like they were co-written by his PR person. A Flint, Michigan native, he raps over roiling, tinny, distinctly-Michigan beats, spitting lyrics that would give Adam Silver an ulcer. Like Babyface Ray, his flow carries a casual, downhill momentum; like YN Jay, he’s a jokester with an ear for punchlines; like Sada Baby, he pulls from a deep codex of obscure sports references. That is to say that he makes the same kind of niche, regionally-faithful Michigan rap music that’s become an underground phenomenon—and that he’s pretty good at it to boot.