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Damian Lillard tries 'to paint a picture' in rap career

Sam Amick
USA TODAY Sports
Blazers guard Damian Lillard has a passion for rap.

SACRAMENTO — If Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard has his way, he'll hole up in some island-getaway hotel room come late June with one task in mind: writing the lyrics to his championship song.

For as good as Lillard is at the game that catapulted him from Oakland to Weber State to this place among the NBA's elite — rookie of the year, two-time All-Star, the latest Western Conference player of the week, leader of this Portland team (39-19) that is fourth place in the West — his reputation as a rapper is right there with his basketball prowess.

"A lot of people might think, 'Oh he's a basketball player and he's rapping? That's so cliché,' " said Blazers assistant David Vanterpool, a 41-year-old mentor of Lillard's who, as an owner of the Sugar Hill Gang's original Rapper's Delight vinyl, fancies himself an expert on such musical matters. "But he's no joke. He's a rapper who plays basketball, in my opinion."

Not long after Lillard entered the NBA, he started a #4BarFriday feature that became a weekly online talent show of sorts in which the best lyricists were showcased on his massive social media stage (707,000 followers and growing on Twitter; one million Instagram followers). He has shared his own M.C. abilities on various interviews, from the Conan talk-show on TBS to a recent appearance with former MTV host Sway Calloway on Sirius XM radio, in which his 70-second performance left the host wondering why Lillard is already so much better than so many artists who focus on their craft full-time.

"I'm from a city where your friend will put a gun to your mind, 'cause you're eating and they envy all that glory and shine," he rhymed about Oakland. "I swear to God it gets realer, a city full of killers. Addicts walking 'round looking like the zombies off of Thriller. It's sick and getting iller; that's why my skin's thicker. Now you see why brothers want to get away, grab a Snickers. My mission took me to college, where I picked up the knowledge and tried to stay away from violence, since I escaped the virus."

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When Lillard was done, Calloway put rappers everywhere on notice.

"He's doing it as a pastime, and he's beating you," he hollered on the show. "Get your game up!"

From Shaquille O'Neal to Allen Iverson to Metta World Peace, the list of NBA players who have been part-time rappers is long. O'Neal is the most successful of the bunch, as he produced five albums and even went platinum with one (according to a Billboard article from 2004, his 1993 production, Shaq Diesel, had sold 864,000 copies). Fellow Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant was one of the least successful (his album, K.O.B.E., was never released).

Lillard doesn't have an album yet, but all these days of learning and late nights of writing inevitably will lead to that day at some point down the road. As Vanterpool noticed not long after they became so close in 2012, Lillard is a student of the rap game in the same way he is with hoops. He's quite studious, too, often turning his views into verses during late-night, hotel-room sessions that offer the kind of solitude and serenity he craves these days.

This week was no different, with Lillard living this double life that he grows more addicted to all the time.

"We got (to Sacramento on Monday) night, and I went and had dinner with some friends — we chat, we talk, whatever," Lillard told USA TODAY Sports. "And then when I got back to the room, I just turned the beat on and I listened to it like 50 times in a row.

"Every time I listen to original beats that aren't other people's beats, something that could be a song of mine, I always go through my verses and I try to pick, 'All right, will this beat fit with the mood of what I wrote for this verse?' Just in case I ever need to take something off of another beat and make it a song of my own. As much as I love basketball, my whole life I've been passionate about other things too."

And music is right up there.

"When I listen to music, I listen for the substance, I listen to the bars, I listen to the beat, and I try to paint a picture with everything that I hear in music," said Lillard, who routinely researches the meaning of words that he hears for the first time as a way to increase his vocabulary. "Whether it's R&B, rap, jazz, country, whatever it is, I try to paint a picture. That's what I try to do when I write because I know I've got a story to tell and I know that there are a lot of people who have probably some of the same experiences, people who might have failed and done bad coming from what I've come from and some who know what I'm saying, who feel exactly what I'm saying."

As is the case with most good storytellers, there is a substance that comes with Lillard that makes him relatable to the masses. His stories — like that haunting memory of a night in 2008 when three men robbed him at gunpoint at the Eastmont bus station after his practice with the Oakland High School team — aren't embellished. The combination of his stellar play and his genuine personality has paid off in a major way off the floor, as he signed a shoe deal with Adidas last year that could pay him more than $100 million.

"It's funny, people always say, 'build your brand,' but a lot of times when people focus on building your brand it's not authentic, it's not real," he said. "It's just doing whatever you've got to do to build this foundation, to build this platform, and gain a following. For me, I think it's been so easy because I've only been myself. It means something to me to do stuff for your community, to do stuff for others. I like to bring others up. That's always been a part of who I am."

There is an unavoidable downside to Lillard's style, though, as his rapid ascent and widespread popularity have forever changed the world around him. Gone are the days when he can catch a quiet movie in the afternoon or pay an anonymous visit to the nearest blacktop.

As he sat courtside at Sleep Train Arena preparing to play the Sacramento Kings, Lillard marveled at the idea that kids and grown men alike showed up wearing his jersey, or that a fan had taken the time to pen a sign that read "Lillard time."

"We're not in Portland, you know?" he said. "The city of Portland made that (saying) up."

As Blazers media relations leader Jim Taylor told him when he first entered the league, success and failure can be equally challenging.

"It's funny because as much as I enjoy people respecting me and wanting my autograph and wanting a picture and staring at me and pointing, as much as I respect that and appreciate it, it's like sometimes you miss just being normal," Lillard said. "I just want to be a fly on the wall sometimes, and just watch. But everything you do, there's somebody watching. I mean I guess it's OK. I just like to do regular things, and I don't like to be excluded and not be able to do stuff.

"I like to go roller skating, to go to the movies, to go to the mall. ... I feel bad if — like I'll never skip over a kid (who he comes across) but sometimes I just wish I could go somewhere and have my privacy. It's everywhere. It's gotten to the point to where it's everywhere now. ... I talk to my brother about stuff like that all the time. I think it has just happened so fast that I don't realize what I might be in other people's eyes sometimes."

Rap, quite clearly, is fast becoming his refuge.

"He has a similar passion for it (like he does with basketball), and he's really good," said Vanterpool, who often dines with Lillard on the road before he heads for his hotel-room studio. "There's no profanity, no language. It's really impressive to me. It's something he can go to when he wants to get his mind off of things."

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