Kurtis Blow “Basketball” (1984)

Basketball is my favorite sport

I like the way they dribble up and down the court

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

I used to go to dinner, then take the girl

To see Tiny play against Earl The Pearl

And Wilt, Big O, and Jerry West

Play basketball at its very best

Basketball has always been my thing

I like Magic, Bird, and Bernard King

And number 33, my man Kareem

Is the center on my starting team

Clyde, Rick Barry, and Pistol Pete

Now these players could never be beat

Isiah, and Iceman, too

Just give 'em the ball, and then you chalk up two

Dantley and Wilkins are on the scene

And Ralph Sampson is really mean

Bill Russell didn't take no junk

And Darryl Dawkins got a monster dunk

Tell me, were you in the joint

The night Wilt scored a hundred points?

Or when Celtics won titles back-to-back

And didn't give nobody no kind of slack?

Or when Dr. J shook the whole damn team

With moves that came right out of a dream?

Or when Willis Reed stood so tall

Playing D with desire? It's basketball!

I get the ball and then I go and play

Like a superstar in the NBA

The forwards, the centers, and all the guards

The ones you see on the bubblegum cards

Me and homeboy would go one-on-one

'Cause playing the game is a lot of fun

Sit by the TV and watch 'em all

'Cause Kurtis Blow is rappin' basketball

Eric B. & Rakim “Don’t Sweat the Technique” (1992)

Let's trace the hints and check the file

Let see who bit to detect the style

I flip the script so they can't get foul.

At least not now, it'll take a while

I change the pace to complete the beat

I drop the bass, 'till MC's get weak.

For every word they trace, it's a scar they keep

'Cause when I speak, they freak

To sweat the technique

I made my debut in '86

With a melody and a president's mix

And now I stay on target and refuse to miss

And I still make hits with beats

Parties, clubs, in the cars and jeeps

My underground sound vibrates the streets

MC's want to beef then I play for keeps

When they sweat the technique

They want to know how many rhymes have I ripped in rep., but

Researchers never found all the pieces yet

Scientists try to solve the context

Philosophers are wondering what's next

Pieces are took to last who observe them

They couldn't absorb them, they didn't deserve them

My ideas are only for the audience's ears

For my opponents, it might take years

Pencils and pens, are swords

Letters put together form a key to chords

I'm also a sculpture, born with structure

Because of my culture, I'm a rip and destruct the

Difficult styles that'll be for the technology

Complete sights and new heights after I get deep

You don't have to speak just seek

And peep the technique

I speak indiscreet cause talk is cheap

Then I get deep and the weak then complete their

Pull with a seat, never weak or obsolete

They never grow old techniques become antiques

Better then something brand new 'cause it's radiant

And the wild style'll have much more volume

Classical too intelligent to be radical

Masterful, never irrelevant: mathematical

Here's some soothing souvenirs for all the years

They fought, and sought, the thoughts and ideas

It's cool when you freak to the beat

But don't sweat the technique

Both songs are considered to be sort of a rap style but they appeal to slightly different audiences.
“Basketball” has a simpler rhyming scheme and can be followed easily without a lyric sheet. Eric B. and
Rakim’s song had much more flare and rhyming patterns as well as many examples of assonances that
aren’t so clear to the ears. “Don’t Sweat the Technique” describes someone's personal biography almost
And “Basketball” has a much more general theme of the appreciation of the sport. “Basketball” is
definitely more goofy and “Don't Sweat the Technique has a much more mature feel to it with a more
“gangsta” vibe more catered to adults perhaps, at least as far as the music video goes.