April 27, 2019 – AssociatedNews.info

Sports April 27, 2019

NBA’s Lack Of Latino Players

Now that the NBA playoffs are in full swing, there’s an element missing: Latino players. Just 2% of NBA players are Latino and that has the league looking for ways to increase the number of Latinos.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Switching gears now, it’s a big weekend for sports fans, what with the NFL Combine, baseball season and the NHL and NBA playoffs. All these sports have gotten more diverse, but with a growing Latino fan base, the NBA is hoping to attract more Latino players. Esteban Bustillos from member station WGBH in Boston is going to tell us more about that.

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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting).

ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS, BYLINE: You can’t even begin to talk about Latino basketball players without talking about Manu Ginobili.

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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Cheering).

BUSTILLOS: The Argentinian shooting guard is widely considered the best Latin American player ever. He spent 16 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs and won four championships. Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich says his presence off the court with the Latino community was always something special.

GREGG POPOVICH: He allowed it to happen. He’s a very warm individual and understood his responsibility to the community.

BUSTILLOS: Ginobili bowed out last year, but the team retired his jersey last month when the Spurs took on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Billed as Gracias, Manu, the night was a celebration of Genobili and his heritage.

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MICHELLE LECLERCQ: (Singing in Spanish).

BUSTILLOS: Before tip-off, an Argentinian singer performed the country’s national anthem. And when it was Ginobili’s time to talk after the game, he gave a bilingual speech to the sold-out arena.

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MANU GINOBILI: (Speaking Spanish).

BUSTILLOS: It was a fitting sendoff for the NBA’s most successful Latin player in one of the country’s most Latino cities.

ARNON DE MELLO: The Latino demographic is the one that grows, I believe, the most in the states already.

BUSTILLOS: Arnon de Mello is the senior vice president and managing director of NBA Latin America. According to the league, Hispanics comprise 17% of the U.S. fan base. That’s roughly 15 million fans. In Latin America, NBA programming reaches dozens of countries and territories and is broadcast in four different languages. De Mello says it’s even starting to gain ground on that other sport involving a ball and a net – soccer.

DE MELLO: You know, if you look at the Caribbean and Brazil and Mexico, you see that in that region, basketball clearly is a contender for the No. 2 spot, not only in terms of participation but also affinity and popularity of the sport.

BUSTILLOS: But as popular as the game is becoming among fans, Latino professional players are still scarce. According to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, the NBA was only 2.3% Latino last season. That translates to just 11 players. But the league has made a point of focusing on fostering talents outside the United States.

Along with junior NBA programs in Latin America, the league just opened an academy in Mexico City to help develop the region’s best prospects. And de Mello says they’re trying to get a G League team, the NBA version of a minor league club, set up in the Mexican capital. This is all a big switch from when Boston Celtics center Al Horford was growing up in the Dominican Republic, and basketball was just becoming popular.

AL HORFORD: You going in the yard, and you drive around, and you see everybody, you know, playing basketball out of basketball courts. And people are hungry. You know, they really enjoy basketball.

BUSTILLOS: Horford is using his influence to help grow the game. Last year, the Celtics star was part of an initiative to renovate courts in the Dominican Republic.

HORFORD: One of the things that I want to continue to work on is to continue to help to develop the game over there so – because the passion is there.

BUSTILLOS: Now, as Horford and other Latino players help to carry the torch first lit by people like his father Tito, who was the first Dominican player in the NBA, and Ginobili, Horford is aware of the example he’s setting for the community.

HORFORD: It’s something that, you know, that I’m proud of – to be a Latino.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE HERBALISER’S “TAKEDOWN (SALT POPCORN REMIX)”)

MARTIN: That was Esteban Bustillos in Boston.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Entertainment April 27, 2019

Baloji Finds His Freedom In Between Genres

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Baloji’s Kaniama: The Yellow Version is due out May 3.

Kyle Weeks/Courtesy of the artist

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Kyle Weeks/Courtesy of the artist

Baloji is an artist who finds strength in his roots but freedom in between genres. He was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but has lived in Belgium most of his life. The rapper is a well-known name in Belgium and France. He’s received music honors for his work, but his life has been a journey of struggle and perseverance.

At 3 years old, Baloji’s father took him to Belgium without telling his mother. After dropping out of school and leaving home at 14, Baloji discovered hip-hop. Performing under the name MC Balo, the young upstart joined the hip-hop group Starflam. As the group began to gain popularity, Baloji received a letter from his mother that changed the course of his life and career.

“I was 26 years old when I received that letter for my mom. I thought at first it was fraud,” Baloji says. But his mother knew his birth date and sent him photos of when he was a baby. The letter impacted him greatly.

Baloji’s mother had seen him on TV performing with Starflam. “Your dad told me that he brought you to Belgium … to the land of Marvin Gaye,” she wrote. The American artist used to reside in Ostend, Belgium, the same city Baloji first moved to. Gaye’s music became the inspiration for his first solo project, especially the song “I Am Going Home.” “That really stuck in my head and inspired me to do my first album, which is dedicated to my mom,” Baloji says.

Baloji’s debut album, 2008’s Hotel Impala, was a collection of all his life experiences leading up to seeing his mother again. Ten years later, the artist’s 2018 album, 137 Avenue Kaniama and his upcoming follow-up, Kaniama: The Yellow Version, relate back to the message of Hotel Impala. For example, on “La Derniere Pluie,” the centerpiece of the album, Baloji remembers meeting his mother for the first time as an adult in the DRC and realizing their cultural differences.

“This song is talking about how we met physically, how it happened, how I was feeling, how she was feeling and how we were both nervous,” Baloji explains. Baloji had invited his mother to an upscale restaurant, but the expensive menu made his mother uncomfortable. “Every meal costs at least 20 dollars, we can buy a pack of rice for that price that will last a month,” she told him. “I was expecting us to hug and be in a loving relationship, and for her — I had to take care of her and his siblings,” Baloji adds.

Baloji music tackles issues large and small. From his family history, to the experience of refugees in Europe, to our dependence on smartphones. His goal, he says, is to create art that lasts and he can be proud of.

Listen to the conversation at the audio link.

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