Basketball is basketball. And whether it's male, or female, or has any other label attached to it... that really doesn't matter to me. It really doesn't matter who's playing. Hoop is hoop. Game is game. If you have it, I'll recognize it. Period.
I don't come from any type of entertainment. I come from a basketball family. My dad still says, 'Trevor, are you sure don't want to play basketball? You can play in college and go to the NBA!' But I did play.
I play basketball. I need a jersey and I need some shorts that I feel comfortable in. I'm trying to hoop, not go to a fashion show on the court.
I don't play basketball for the money. I don't play it for the crowd. When I didn't have a friend, when I was lonely, I always knew I could grab that orange pill and go hoop. I could go and dunk on somebody. If things weren't going right, I could make a basket and feel better.
When I get done playing basketball, I'm definitely not going to be a rapper. I'm not going to be an old person who is focused on being a rapper.
I hate when any rapper would just use "Rapper X" because "Rapper X" is hot at the time and put them on the record. That's not how I do my thing. I work with my friends and people I consider fam.
Writing 'Hoop Roots' was a substitute or a surrogate activity. I can't play anymore - my body won't cooperate - so in the writing of the book, I was looking to tell a good story about my life and about basketball, but I was also looking to entertain myself the way that I entertain myself when I play.
I just go out there and play basketball. I play basketball the way I'd play if I was at the park. There's no motives with me. I'm all for the team, and that's how I play.
Whenever I'm out on the basketball court, I lace up and just hoop. Whether it's in summertime, at practice, in the games, playoffs, every time I step out on the basketball court, I approach it the same way.
In my time, we had little league and junior league or whatever - before that, there's the sandlot. Kids played baseball wherever you can make a space. We played tackle-football on the street. Now we play basketball in the studio. We have a hoop. But we also have a pitching machine.
Just like I'm the king on the microphone, so is Dr. J and Moses Malone
I like slam dunks, take me to the hoop my favorite play is the alley-oop
I like the pick-and-roll, I like the give-and-go
Cause it's basketball, uh, Mister Kurtis Blow.
What I wanted to do in talking about basketball in 'Hoop Roots' was retrieve the game as something to participate in, not to watch.
I would walk around in all these cities we lived in because my dad would move around so much. I would just walk the streets with a ball in my hand, and my mom holding my other handing waiting to find a hoop to play in. That was my first love of basketball.
I would never challenge any rapper to a rap-off. It's weird, I'm not that type of rapper.
The point of '777' is for the world to hear adult Key. Your favorite new rapper's favorite rapper, grown up. My job was to lay any canvas he needed at any given moment.
To be honest, I never thought I'd be famous for baseball. I want to play basketball, and I could also do both basketball and baseball - but I really want to play basketball.