From Portland, Oregon, Connect Zero came through today with Dribble Up, a song of gigantic Rap proportions reflective of the excitement one lives through during a basketball game.
The artist shares exclusively for Blue Rhymez Entertainment: “With my father playing in the NBA, as I was growing up, basketball was a huge part of my life and something I took seriously from a very young age. I was in the Rec Leagues starting at age four, playing ball in middle school, making the varsity team in high school, and dominating during the AAU season. Dribble Up is rooted in the gameplay of my last season, from start to finish.”
There’s something so theatrical and undeniably artistic about the commencing instruments that it’s difficult to fathom a Rap song coming out of it. And yet, that is exactly what we’re about to consume. The leading synth leaves its sonorous imprint on the vibe of the song from start to end but it beautifully blends with the artist’s vocals when he starts rapping: They see the way that I hit the floor/ Nobody checking my temperature/ We throw the lob on the backs of boards/ Then break the rim that’s the signature/ No, I ain’t doing no technicals/ They like to play with the boy in the rectangle/ I shimmy shake then I leave that boy’s ankles/ I take ’em, I break ’em, he’ll never be hooping again. Did we sound a tad romantic in the beginning? ‘Cause boy… this is far from it!!! Those last 2 bars snapped us back to reality, ope, there goes gravity 😀 On a serious note, Connect Zero has the perfect timbre for spitting Rap and sounding colder than the 250 corpses that have been cryogenically preserved in the U.S.
The flow feels… cursive? It rides the beat in the same wavy pattern the top synth leads with. Somehow, Connect Zero made all the different elements of the record reverberate harmoniously with each other while offering unique respective sonic experiences. The aggressive concentration specific of Rap music is mostly represented by the smartly written rhymes and metaphors and abiding by the same basketball referencing fidelity, Connect Zero continues: They play the clip in the ESPN/ Shaqtin a fool, bet they play it again/ I got the moves like I’m Nash wearing ten/ In LA triple-double we hooping again/ Right at the buzzer, he slipping, he sliding, no lying/ Don’t think that I’m missing again/ I shoot the three then I turn to the fans/ There ain’t no question know if it’s going in.
Connect Zero is one talented songwriter and avid sports fan. We never thought one could evoke an entire basketball game in the listener’s mind without actually being a player in that moment. I lace my sneakers to beat him/ You not gon’ like how I treat ’em/ The moment that he shoot the ball/ I’m jumping up there just to meet him/ I’m grabbing the board and I’m down the floor/ Passing that ball to the shooting guard/ Hit a pump fake then he dribble off, follow the eccentric yet audaciously satisfying lyrics.
By the end, we are granted an instrumental-only segment taking us back to that Broadway feeling the music was basking in in the beginning.
Of a class qualitatively superior to modern Rap narratives, Dribble Up takes the road less traveled by submerging a worldwide adored sport with the old-school lyrical pillar of obliterating your enemies with swag.
Song Credits: Kealand Cato (Connect Zero) – Artist, Songwriter, Sound Engineer; Jimmy Valentin – Music Producer.
Make sure you support Connect Zero by streaming Dribble Up on Amazon Music HERE, Apple Music HERE, Deezer HERE, YouTube Music HERE, and on Spotify below:
Written by Mariana Berdianu
Blue Rhymez Entertainment ©2022
Blue Rhymez Entertainment 