Howard Smith, USA TODAY Sports
NEW ORLEANS — Damian Lillard’s sixth All-Star Weekend competition was not like the five that have had him in the headlines. The Portland Trail Blazers point guard has attracted attention all over the NBA for being the first player ever to attempt all five major events (the Rising Stars Challenge, skills competition, three-point shootout, dunk contest and the All-Star Game itself), but the #4BarFriday party he hosted at the Maison club in downtown New Orleans on Friday was a contest of his own creation.
All season, Lillard has been posting raps on his Instagram account with the #4BarFriday hashtag, and it’s taken on a life of its own.
“The #4BarFriday concept started when Instagram came out with the 15-second videos, and I said, ‘That’s enough time to do four bars,’” Lillard told the crowd when he took the stage at about 11p.m. on Friday night. “So I talked to a few people who thought it was a good idea to make it a trending topic on Instagram and come up with something every Friday.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of famous people and a lot of my friends and people who follow me on social networks really jump onto it and help me spread the word and get a lot of people involved in it.”
Eight contestants, hand-selected from the regulars on Instagram, competed with each other in pairs, backed by the influential Cash Money Records DJ and producer Mannie Fresh. The contestants could each choose to rap for 15 seconds a cappella or with musical accompaniment (they were about evenly split), with the volume of the crowd picking the winner of each round.
The contestants came from all over the country: two (Carrie Oliver and Danny Stith) hailed from Lillard’s native Oakland, while others were flown in from Virginia (Tenishea Drummond), Milwaukee (Alexis Dean) and Portland (Gordon Peterson).
“Each week we pick the top four,” Lillard told For The Win on Saturday after his practice with the Western Conference All-Stars. “And the people who got picked are the people who are always participating, doing it every week. So the ones who got picked (for the event) are the ones who have been in the top four most of the time.”
After an impressive, energetic performance by the veteran New Orleans dance crew Dragon Master Showcase, the contestants took the stage two at a time. Jake Stockton of Vancouver was doomed from the start when he forgot his lyrics halfway through his first verse. Dean paid homage to All-Star Weekend (“Hip-hop needed an assist, I’m like Chris to Blake Griffin”).
The pool was whittled down to two before Lillard showed up in a gray suit, after the Rising Stars Challenge. He thanked everyone for showing up and performed a few bars of his own.
The winner was Los Angeles’ Noah King, a performance artist with an endearingly awkward stage presence. “Can I just acknowledge,” he said during the final round, “Mannie Fresh is behind me right now. That is weird.” He out-rapped Dean in the closing rounds, and even though Lillard himself refused to pick a winner, the crowd was clearly on King’s side.
For his part, Lillard had no idea his Instagram game would get to this point. Much like his unlikely NBA career, the movement grew organically until it could no longer be denied.
“I wanted it to just be, people submit their four bars and let it grow,” he said. “But it grew a lot faster than I thought. Eventually, I said I wanted to start doing events and host battles and stuff like that.”
Lillard plans to put on more #4BarFriday events in the future, but first, he has a few other All-Star events to get through, and a likely playoff run with the Trail Blazers this spring.
With his growing star power in the NBA and on social media, it doesn’t look like #4BarFriday is going away anytime soon.
