I Was Not Prepared For the NBA 2K18 Shook Ones Trailer

There was a time and place where I toiled away hours, days, and weeks of life to sports video games. I had always been a surface Madden player, but specifically the Show series on Playstation and NBA 2K series would swallow my life whole if I let it. Nothing has changed to alter that status quo any more than having the privilege to recognize an addiction and simply avoid it. I’m rethinking that this year though. I know I’m late. I was watching the trailer for the NBA 2K18’s All Time, a pioneered feature for the 2K franchise that lets you play the best possible teams from each franchise, no matter the time period, against each other. Jordan’s Bulls vs Steph Curry’s Warriors, type shit. But as YouTube is wan to do, at the end, it showed me other videos that might interest me and I saw I had missed one. Shook Ones trailer? Any time that an AAA produced, mainstream product advertises with what I consider deep cuts of AAVE lore, I often feel the need to investigate. Mostly to see if this is a wink and a nod from another Black passenger across the capitalist table. Or if we are being appropriated, yet again, in some fashion.

Immediately, when the trailer begins, I knew this was the latter. Havoc’s Shook Ones beat (I & II) are among the most iconic instrumentals in rap history. It is instantly recognizable and yet instantly qualifying for the level of hip hop head you were. Mobb Deep, especially in their debut, was not a commercial or mainstream darling that some of their contemp…