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Bridging the Gap: The Inside Story of Damian Lillard’s 4BarFriday
For more rhymes, check out the @4barfriday account and hashtag on Instagram. For more music stories, head to Instagram @music.
“I want people to see that it’s not a game, it’s not a joke.”
Few ballplayers not named Shaquille O’Neal have found any sort of real success in the rap world; in fact, the mere thought of a baller trying to spit bars can draw jeers from the bleachers. But for Damian Lillard @damianlillard, the Portland Trail Blazers’ 2012-13 Rookie of the Year point guard, there is hope. Through a handful of remixes the 25-year-old released directly to SoundCloud this offseason, Damian has proven, undeniably, that he can actually rap. And through a clever Instagram account and hashtag he created called #4BarFriday, where rappers share 15-second videos of themselves reciting short rhyming couplets, he’s spent the past two years not necessarily proclaiming himself the greatest rapper alive, but rather using his star power to shine a light on others who might actually be just that.
“I knew if I started putting out rhymes some people might think it’s corny and some people might not pay attention to it,” says Damian, who also goes by the emcee name Dame DOLLA. “But #4BarFriday was a way for me to get a lot of my fans and people who are fans of the game to see that there was someone in the NBA that was serious about music. And using your platform and having an impact on other people’s lives, giving them opportunity, is what it’s all about.”
Damian grew up in Oakland and was raised in a music-loving household, cutting his teeth to the sounds of classic soul — The Temptations, Al Green, the Gap Band — and hip-hop. “I’ve always liked music with substance,” he says, namechecking Nas, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G. and Lil Wayne as some of his favorites. “Something you can feel.” He began rapping in middle school, spitting rhymes while his friends beat their fists against the seats on the bus to school. Later, one of his assistant coaches recorded his songs in his home studio. “In high school,” he remembers, “we’d come out to our own songs.”
His first love was basketball though, so as his career took off, jumping from Weber State to the Blazers, rapping became more of an ancillary thing — merely a creative outlet, helping him express thoughts and feelings about what he was seeing and experiencing. The rise, the fall, the ups, the downs; life at the bottom, where he’d just come from, and life at the top, where he is now.
“When I got into the league, there was so much more that I started to see,” he says. “I was exposed to so many more different things. I learned so much more, so I had a lot more to say. Because of that, I became a better rapper.”
Then, two years ago, a lightbulb went off in Damian’s head — he could start using short-form video, and his growing legion of followers, to build an online community for rappers.
“I thought: 15 seconds is just long enough to say four bars,” he says. “If someone is coming week after week with a hard four bars, and you look at what they’re saying, you can see if they’re really nice.”
Through #4BarFriday — which reblogs the best videos each week on its dedicated page — Damian’s been able to expose his own skills, and at the same time, put the spotlight on a wealth of talent hidden below the music industry’s radar. Last February, he flew a group of them down to New Orleans for a #4BarFriday battle during NBA All-Star Weekend.
Some, like Milwaukee-bred emcee L.E.X. (@1lexdarapper), 23, and Virginia-native Timeless TeeZ (@teezysodope), 28, have been uploading videos since the beginning, and through the community, they’ve not only gained an ally in Damian, they’ve earned new fans and friends as well.
“I’m an independent artist and I do everything on my own,” says TeeZ, who when she’s not rapping, coaches youth basketball and works in a community center. “But each week the response gets better and better. I gain fans. Every day there are people who repost me that I’ve never met. And it’s also helped me hone my skills as an artist, because if you’re rapping weekly — for the public — it helps you get better. So I honestly think it’s just the beginning as far as something major happening.”
L.E.X., who raps and goes to college, echoes this, and says the page has put him in touch with other #4BarFriday emcees, whom he now calls “brothers.” “One week, we got on WhatsApp,” he recalls, “and we’re like, ‘Let’s all rap on this beat on Friday, and then we’ll make it like a cipher, online.’” Still, while he admits the exposure is great, it takes more than four bars for an artist to prove their worth. “People put a lot of effort into four bars,” he says. “But it takes even more effort to put it into a verse and a song. So, it can give you a glimpse of how good a person is, but you still have to work outside of #4BarFriday.”
Which is where Damian himself has netted out. After showing his 1.5 million Instagram followers he could spit a hot line or two, Dame DOLLA finally began releasing freestyles in July, kicking aspirational rhymes over beats like Future’s “F— Up Some Commas,” Kanye West’s “The Food” and Jadakiss’ “Why,” among others. Original songs by himself and with the #4BarFriday albums are forthcoming. For now, what is turning heads the most is not Damian’s flow or delivery but rather his thoughtfulness, maturity and introspection, which neither athletes nor rappers are particularly well-known for, at least not this early in their careers.
“People are impressed that it’s real rap, not just a basketball player rapping,” he says, confirming that forthcoming projects from both himself and the #4BarFriday alums will be released soon. “I’m a college graduate and I’ve experienced a lot of things in my life. I’ve seen not being successful and I’ve seen being successful. I’ve seen growing up in a really bad neighborhood and living in a really nice neighborhood. Being able to see both sides, it helps. I feel like I can bridge that gap.”
—Paul Cantor for Instagram @music
by via Instagram Blog
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