For months, BIG3 co-founder and legendary rapper Ice Cube has accused the NBA of working against his basketball league to stunt their growth, stop advertising opportunities, and eliminate them entirely. TMZ Sports is reporting that the United States Department of Justice has launched an official investigation to determine if the National Basketball Association committed antitrust violations. Ice Cube spoke to Panama Jackson about his concerns during the summer months as BIG3’s sixth season was underway. We’ve gone into the vault and are giving you a Dear Culture Rewind as news of the DOJ’s inquiry makes headlines.
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Panama Jackson [00:00:00] You are now listening to theGrio Black Podcast Network. Black Culture Amplified. What’s going on, everybody. Welcome to Dear Culture, the podcast for by and about the culture here on theGrio Black Podcast Network. I’m your host, Panama Jackson, and I want to welcome you to our podcast here dear Culture. Make sure you subscribe and give us a like over there and everywhere you listen to your podcast, it really matters. We appreciate it. We appreciate you. We thank you for listening and because we appreciate you so much. Every now and then we get an opportunity to go out and have a conversation with a genuine culture maker and influencer and game changer and that’s what we got today. Let me tell you, our guest today is somebody who I personally consider to be one of the greatest rappers of all time, somebody who in my personal, personal goat conversation. This is a person who brought us the four album run one of America’s Most Wanted, Death Certificate, The Predator, Lethal Injection. He was a part of N.W.A. He’s the scribe for one of the greatest songs in hip-hop history. F the Police. He brought us Friday. He’s a writer, director, producer. I mean, in the words of Big Red from the Five Heartbeats, or what do you don’t do, I think it’s obvious who my guest is today. Here’s one more thing. He’s the co-founder of the BIG3, which is a basketball league that features three on three games with former NBA stars and players who are out touring the country. But today’s guest deserves all the flowers that we can possibly give. I’m speaking to none other than Ice Cube.
Ice Cube [00:01:33] Sup man, how you feel?
Panama Jackson [00:01:34] How are you doing, brother? And thank you so much for being here. It’s truly an honor and we’re going to I want to talk to you about the BIG3.
Ice Cube [00:01:41] That’s the magic number. Got the homies balling out for the whole damn summer in that four point circle. With that ghost balling purple. If you check the roster got a three have mastered not.
Panama Jackson [00:01:51] Most of the scores are very close like people who get the 51st does not like they blowing people out like it’s competitive enough and you know what you brought up? You know, there’s a couple of things that I want to bring up. You know, recently I saw your video you on this, you know, Fuck the Gatekeepers podcast tour.
Ice Cube [00:02:05] Really, I don’t give a fuck about working with the NBA. What I want them to do when I say work with us is to stop working against us. Stop doing that bullshit behind the scenes that we know you’re doing.
Panama Jackson [00:02:19] You know, I saw that, I saw the video and then, you know, I saw clips from your conversation recently with Joe Rogan about, you know, the media not being supportive or in effectively the NBA kind of being in the way. I don’t know if holding you back, but and not allowing this space to succeed.
Ice Cube [00:02:37] They’re actually going behind our back and talking to networks. They’re talking to sponsors, you know, companies, brands who advertise with basketball, advertise in the NBA and and they’re going and personalities their players who who who are on air and telling them basically not to speak about the BIG3. We’ve heard it from ya know very reputable sources and sometimes out of the companies. The CEO, CMO, um COO. You know, these guys are you know, they tell it straight up. You know it guys work it out with the NBA, we can do something with you and they’re basically saying, if you don’t, we can’t and, and you know, we were told as much. So it’s just it’s just gotta stop and this is my way of trying to shed some light on it because I don’t have any. We don’t have a lot of sports media covering the league like it should, and that’s probably because of NBA pressure. So I just want to deal with it.
Panama Jackson [00:04:07] If the NBA is suppressing media coverage in all of this and getting in the way, why do you think that is? Because it doesn’t. This is not even a this is not even a league that’s in competition directly with the NBA. I mean, it it doesn’t even occur during the same time frame. You know, it has former players involved in like I mean, it’s you know, it’s.
Ice Cube [00:04:28] A couple of things. It could be a couple of things, you know. I don’t. I don’t know the direct. Reason. You know, I’m speculating, but the NBA believe they own basketball and. They they don’t they don’t like the fact that we we changing the game that we’ve pushed the game. But our game you know, we haven’t touched the NBA. They’ve actually taken some rules that we implemented in our league and put it in their league.
Panama Jackson [00:05:02] So like, which ones?
Ice Cube [00:05:05] Players picking their own team, doing All-Star Game.
Panama Jackson [00:05:09] All-Star stuff yeah.
Ice Cube [00:05:10] In the BIG3. We were on the 14 second shot clock. You know, they do it now after, you know, if a ball goes out of bounds and it stays on the same side of the court, they they do that. We got it. We got the coaches out them damn suits a shit, you know, all them little things, you know, and us being first with mental health. They used to shun players because they were, you know, was struggling mentally. They used to put them out and league they used to Blackball ’em. We were first with CBD use, getting our players off of opioids to heal their pain. You know, we got we got growing lists, you know, I mean, they got about, you know, 14 to 18 things that we’ve seen that they’ve. They’ve now for months now, look, they’ve been around 75 years and we’ve borrowed a lot from them. Okay. We’re not complaining. What we’re saying is we’re good for the game. We have they’re their players. You know, It’s like they’re trying to crush Ice Cube in my league. Okay. But what they’ve done to crush is. Dr. Jay from having a head coaching job. Rick Barry, Ice Man. They don’t have no head coaching jobs for those guys. So why, why are they trying to stop them from eating in the BIG3? They’re stopping players who have to go overseas to play and make a living, stopping them from playing at home and making a living. All the people that work for the BIG3, all the people that work in the cities that we stop by, you know, all the other things that reverberate off the league. That puts money in our mouths as Black people and they’re trying to crush it and I don’t understand why. It’s just not. I said this today and it’s like they’ve got Black Lives Matter on the court, but I don’t fuck with on the court. Like, what’s in your heart? Don’t care about that. Stop all the symbolism when you showing your blaent disregard for for what we built. Now, we haven’t built it in a vacuum. We have some of that. You know, Clyde Drexler is our commissioner. You know, we have some of the greatest players to ever touch a basketball endorse this league, be a part of this league for six years. They’ve come back every year, which shows that we’re doing something right. We’re not you know, this is not some scrub shit. So they got to respect you straight up and if they don’t, I’m a make them respect, you know, that’s what I’m out to do. You know what I mean? They’re going to respect what we doing or they just go, you know, we just move furniture. We just going to continue to move furniture.
Panama Jackson [00:08:28] One of my favorite phrases in Black America, you know, when I watch that initial video where you posted a couple of days ago about going on like, you know, speaking up about about gatekeepers and, you know, not being part of the club and all of that. You know, you spoke specifically about like the media and mainstream media not providing, I guess, space and coverage for what you all are doing and it’s funny because I the first thing I did when I watched the video was I want to go look to see who covered it and I didn’t see about one. I think mainstream media got to a mainstream media coverage of that type of thing and it’s interesting because of like what this kind of validates the point you would think somebody of prominence in the league speaking so, you know, straightforwardly and quote unquote, controversially about the league would get more coverage, but it’s not there. So I guess I wonder for you, what would you like the mainstream media to cover more of? Like what do you want the mainstream media to how do you want them to engage with the BIG3?
Ice Cube [00:09:29] We just report on the lives of people to care about the league. I just want them to cover us. We are going to cover all the other leagues. Our ratings are better in MLS. Our ratings are better than NHL. They cover boths, you know? Well, so, you know, we’re doing it. We’re doing the numbers. You know, it’s not just some side game that’s not doing numbers. You know, we’re doing over 500,000 people every weekend on CBS. So and it’s growing and our 18 to 49 demo was up 30% this weekend. So we’re moving in the right direction and this is just as big as anything else out there without the coverage. Now we want the coverage. You know, they may give it to me they may not, but fuck it. I’m getting the word out and talking to people and they are understanding what’s going on and, you know, the BIG3 is is here for the people. This is what I’m trying to make sure people understand that the league is here for our summer entertainment. Cause summer sports are boring.
Panama Jackson [00:10:58] Yeah, I’m with you on that one, brother. You know, to speak positively. So we’re not just focused on the negative, like the BIG3’s expanding. You guys are going overseas. I think the All-Star Game is going to be in London at the O2 Arena. You know, where do you see the BIG3 going from here? It’s been in business for six years. It’s expanded every year. Lots of cities. The tour I’ve watched on TV and the crowd interaction has always been interesting and fun. The famous Michael Rapaport video some years ago. We’re like circulating.
Michael Rapaport [00:11:28] Cuttino. This is a tough game. Killa 3s are not playing around. What do you have to say about this game? My man. You looking at me like you want to put hands on ma.
Cuttino Mobley [00:11:38] Please please man before I put hands on you. Get off of me, man.
Panama Jackson [00:11:44] You know. So where do you see the BIG3 going in? Where do you hope he gets to?
Ice Cube [00:11:51] There’s growing. You know, right now we’re in the process of selling teams and putting teams in cities. You know, once we do that and we sell the 12 teams and we place them in cities then we have our opportunity to go to 16, 20, 24 teams and continue to grow to grow the league that way. We’re also working on what we call Big Cup, which is, you know, inviting the best on three teams around the world to compete and in a Big Cup like World Cup type tournament that you can call a tournament. So so, you know, that’s what we we envision the league is worldwide. Basketball is worldwide its one that on you know 1 of 3 sports that translate no matter what language it’s basketball that’s boxing or UFC and soccer that’s big and of course, some of the others do. But for the most part, it’s a worldwide venture.
Panama Jackson [00:13:12] Well, you know, we wish you much success with that. Obviously, we’d like to end every one of our shows on a Blackfession, which is a confession about your Blackness, something people would be surprised to know about you because you’re Black. Now, this is going to be whatever you got is going to be surprising to me.
Ice Cube [00:13:30] A surprise?
Panama Jackson [00:13:30] Something people will be surprised. Do you know, like people throw food out there, You you’ll be surprised how many people have not seen Friday even on you can quote every line from the movie people who ain’t don’t eat chicken. It’s just it’s so So what is something about Ice Cube that people will be surprised to know, especially because of who you are?
Ice Cube [00:13:56] Uh, Lord have mercy man you got me going into the crates.
Panama Jackson [00:14:00] That’s where we want you to go to the crates brother. You’re a moviemaker. I don’t know what your favorite movie is. You’re one of the greatest rappers of all time. What’s your favorite hip-hop song? I would do. What are the what is the of the things you create? What are your favorite versions of those things that would be interesting to know?
Ice Cube [00:14:16] My favorite movie is Jaws. I mean, is it just the perfect movie. And probably, you know, when I saw it, it just hit different cause ya know, it was the first time something like that was put together on that level, Right? Favorite hip-hop song. You know, I. I got to say, something from Public Enemy, you know I know this man. Welcome to the Terrordome.
[00:14:54] Home is your home. But welcome to the terrodome.
[00:14:58] Is Public Enemy your favorite rap group that you’re not involved with? That’s you’re not a part of.
Ice Cube [00:15:04] Run DMC is my favorite rap group. Chuck D is my favorite rapper of all time.
Panama Jackson [00:15:10] That’s all funny because I thinkl like Chuck D is like in my mind, y’all are peers. But it also makes so much sense because I remember when you were younger people like Ice Cube was like the West Coast, Chuck D kind of thing, like that same, you know, y’all got that same spirit and that’s why everybody was afraid of y’all for so long. Is that the that type of thing that speak truth to power things? That makes a lot of sense to me.
Ice Cube [00:15:34] Yeah. You know, he. So, you know, when you got the mic, what you really supposed to do with it.
Panama Jackson [00:15:43] Absolutely. As did you.If you enjoyed that conversation that I just had with Ice Cube about the BIG3 league, his basketball league that’s traveling around the country, make sure that you stay tuned and subscribe to Dear Culture and give us a like. You know, make sure to hit that like it matters. I would really appreciate it, but make sure you stay tuned to the rest of the conversation that I had with Ice Cube. We had an opportunity to talk to him about the 50 years of hip-hop, his own space in the hip-hop game, and how he’s been so successful, you know. So make sure you stay tuned for the second part of this conversation with Ice Cube. Dear Culture have a Black one.
