I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when Cliff Augustin, super-producer at The Ringer, played a snippet of LiAngelo Ball’s hit single “Tweaker” following a Tuesday morning recording of Real Ones.
I might swerve, bend that corner, wooaahhh wooooah.
I had been aware of the song, but I hadn’t bothered to listen. It seems like we get a new NBA rap project almost weekly, and most aren’t in line with my bourgeoisie tastes. But like magic, LiAngelo’s crooning vocals on “Tweaker” wormed their way into my brain almost immediately.
I couldn’t get it out of my head. “Tweaker” became the official soundtrack of my day as I hit Lake Merritt to get a haircut from Pook, grabbed some food, got a fit off, and made the 20-minute journey over the Bay Bridge to catch the Warriors game. By then, Gelo’s vocals were permanently etched into memory.
Bitch, hol’ on tight ’cause I tweak in this bitch, start letting shit go.
An hour later, when I walked onto the Chase Center floor to watch Steph Curry warm up, I found that I wasn’t alone. D Sharp, Golden State’s in-house DJ, apparently shares my opinion that Gelo’s song contains premium slappage, as he unleashed the irreverent sounds of Louisiana bounce to the thousand or so folks already in attendance. Around the lower bowl, heads nodded and brows furrowed. Kids grew excited as “Tweaker” permeated the building, prompting murmurs from coaches along the sideline asking, “Is this really that LiAngelo?”
Every so often, life gives you an Alonzo Mourning–esque moment of clarity. Now in a full-fledged shoulder bop—and slightly surprised a song could overshadow the NBA’s greatest warm-up act—I finally gave in to the fact that the middle Ball brother has a banger on his hands. “Tweaker” is more than a viral hit; it’s a phenomenon, and it’s here to stay.
For the past week, Gelo’s single has filled every corner of the NBA’s ecosystem and grown into a legitimate pop culture smash. It’s been played nonstop in the locker room of the streaking Cleveland Cavaliers, and seemingly every team in the league is trying to make a social moment out of the jam. The Inside the NBA crew spent part of Tuesday’s show trying to master the lyrics, and the gawd Dawn Staley volunteered a Philly Bop alongside the rest of the South Carolina women’s basketball team. The song has even expanded into the wider cultural zeitgeist: It soundtracked the Detroit Lions’ postgame celebration after they clinched their first no. 1 seed in team history, earned Gelo a spot at Rolling Loud L.A., and had multiplatinum rapper Moneybagg Yo on social media literally begging for a feature.
This comes as the Ball family is enjoying a broader moment in the sun. Gelo’s older brother, Lonzo, is back on the court for the Chicago Bulls after a brutal knee injury that kept him out for nearly two years and threatened to end his career. LaMelo, the youngest Ball sibling, leads all Eastern Conference guards in All-Star voting, even though the Hornets have just eight wins in 35 tries.
However, the road to success has been the rockiest for Gelo, the middle brother. After a three-star career at Chino Hills High School in Southern California’s Inland Empire, LiAngelo struggled to gain any sort of footing on the hardwood. In 2017, while on a preseason trip to China with UCLA, he was arrested for stealing a pair of sunglasses from a Louis Vuitton store near his hotel, and he left the team shortly after to play overseas in Lithuania. After failed stints in the G League, Gelo has reappeared as a podcaster, commenting on the current hoops landscape, chopping it up with his older brother, and flexing an occasional Fashion Nova fit pic on the ’gram.
But all the while, he was working on a bigger plan none of us saw coming. Earlier this month, Gelo dropped a snippet of the song on a livestream of the popular internet personality N3on, creating an initial buzz. When the entire thing was released on WorldStar a few days later, “Tweaker” took on a life of its own and heralded the Ball Brother Takeover that was foretold nearly a decade ago.
As a growing curmudgeon, I had low expectations for the song before listening. Basketball and hip-hop have an enduring relationship, but most crossover attempts are bricks. Historically, hoopers have generally been wack on the mic (take your pick), fine but not my style (Damian Lillard), controversial enough to scare the hell out of the league (Jewelz, better known as Allen Iverson), or really good but before my time (oh, hello again, Shaq)—or, in the case of Kobe’s 1999 duet with Tyra Banks, a little too corny to take seriously. What makes Gelo different is the middle Ball brother’s shamelessness.
The success of Gelo’s hit single lies in its comedic self-parody. Gelo, who famously grew up in the Southern California suburb of Chino Hills, raps in a Hot Boys–era flow and waxes poetic about driving fast cars, toting guns, hitting the weed, and smashing your girl, providing some bars I wouldn’t believe were true even if I saw him commit the actions with my own eyes. Still, the sound on “Tweaker” takes me back to my youth, when Webbie, Lil Wayne, Boosie, and Juvenile were the kings of my iPod.
It also makes me cringe that someone who seemingly grew up with every advantage on his side, including, at one time, a free education thanks to his promising hoop ability, is now cosplaying as a gangster rapper for clicks. My mind drifts away from the song and to how rap has devolved from an art form created by underserved Black communities to a medium exploited by corporations at the expense of those same groups, which makes me feel old and like I’m thinking way too deep about a song that doesn’t need me to.
Then, I think back to when I was listening to this bop on the drive. This song has genuinely bright, if not hilarious, lyrical flourishes. In the first verse, Gelo shouts out his father for making him a soldier (salute), followed by a line in which Ball says all he trusts in is “God, Glocks, and dollars” (LOL, OK). The song is entertainment, so why should I hold Gelo to a standard that I don’t hold for 99.9 percent of the rappers I listen to, most of which I know are lying to my face?
A day later, while performing the washed but necessary task of driving home from the dentist, I played the record again, at full blast. The inhibitions from the previous day were mostly gone. I gigged as I swerved and bent the corner toward home, effortlessly indulging a perfect bounce beat on a sunny afternoon. By the end of the ride, two epiphanies entered my orbit.
The first: Stop taking shit so seriously and enjoy the song.
The second: This is LiAngelo’s world, and we’ll be living in it for the foreseeable future.
