He has now joined a surprisingly robust list of well-known basketball players who rap, mostly mediocrely: Allen Iverson, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Damian Lillard, the stars on the often awkward 1994 compilation “B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret.” It’s easy to hear “Tweaker” as a kind of consolation prize, a distraction for Ball while his brothers accumulate N.B.A. glory.
And yet. “Tweaker” is deceptively lo-fi and unwieldy, but directly effective — art passing as a joke.
The chorus is perfectly shaped, if a little slang-by-numbers. Though Ball hails from Southern California, his vocal approach, and the accompanying production, are redolent of the urgent and sometimes clunky New Orleans rap music popularized by No Limit Records in the late 1990s (later streamlined by Cash Money Records), as well as the bouncier and less antic side of 1990s Memphis rap. These are styles where the martial stomp of the flow is as important as the words themselves, or more. (“I ain’t from the South, but kick it with my Memphis twin,” Ball raps on “Tweaker.”)
On the verses, Ball’s vocals are less surly, a little more shrieked and less convincing. Sometimes it sounds like he’s herding more syllables than space allows. The beat is built around a piano figure that sounds accidental, or drunk, like it was played with chubby fingers, adding to the song’s air of legitimate-illegitimate uncertainty.
Nevertheless, “Tweaker” has inspired genuine fervor, presumably some combination of genuine and opportunistic. The Baton Rouge veteran Lil Boosie and the Memphis star Moneybagg Yo both nudged Ball about potential collaborations on X. And Ball was quickly booked for the March installment of the influential hip-hop festival Rolling Loud.
Rarely has a new artist so effectively (and intentionally?) used the modern distribution system of livestreaming to garner an initial buzz, and then built something sturdy upon that bizarre flash of attention. Last year demonstrated just how broken the star-making apparatus in hip-hop has become. There are no reliable systems anymore — not the radio, not streaming services, not TikTok, not the streets.
Instead, there’s this: a happy accident at the intersection of flagging celebrity and incidental notoriety. Seemingly, Ball has completed the almost impossible-to-nail pachinko that ends up with a possible smash. “Tweaker” is an earnest attempt. It’s a stunt. It’s a gaffe. It’s a Hail Mary. It’s a meme. It’s a hit.
