Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Working On Jazz/B-Ball/Hip-Hop Doc
Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is working on an untitled documentary that explores the relationship between Jazz music, Hip-Hop and basketball. Abdul-Jabbar told Hoopsworld.com that the documentary was in the production phase, as producers were filming interviews and locating hard to find archival footage. “We’re doing a documentary, and hopefully it will have a very strong music element,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “We want to show how hip-hop, which kind of fuels today’s basketball stars, is directly related to jazz. When we show that connection we find that things haven’t changed at all.”
The documentary will showcase the relationship between jazz music and basketball in the early days of the sport, when professional basketball was segregated.
“One of the professional teams that was considered to be the best team played out of Harlem,” Abdul-Jabbar told Hoopsworld.com. “They played out of the Renaissance Ballroom and Casino, which was a dance hall and a place where prominent jazz musicians played. The Renaissance team would play before the main attraction when they played their home games. They would play one half of the game, then they would have one minor band, then they would play the second half of the game and then they might have Duke Ellington until 3AM.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers.
No release date was available for the untitled documentary at press time.