NBA 2K23 celebrates the series love of music, by infusing it with locally made music
2K Australia have partnered with Universal Music Australia in announcing a new collaboration for NBA 2K23 that brings some local flavour of music into the iconic sports series, embracing the 20 year long history of music in the game.
The collab brings together artists Chillinit, Sahxl and Barkaa, who have each created their own songs, making use of the sounds of the game as their backing tracks. Performing alongside huge vertical screens that sync game footage to the beats, the artists will MC over unique beats crafted from basketball sound effects. Ball bounces become beats, bleacher stomps become heavy drums and shoe squeaks become record scratches across the three original tracks.
The music videos, which you can watch below, were directed by Gabriel Gasparinatos, who started making rap videos. More recently though he has created ads for Dr Dre, Google and many more.
Gabriel said, “It's been so fun getting back to my rap video roots on this project, it’s highly technical with massive LED screens, an enormous lighting set and motion control rigs but working with DOP Tyson Perkins and bolt operator Max Pepper from Cinoptix on it has been super rewarding. Pulling inspiration from 2K gameplay highlight reels and modern rap clip sensibilities we had a blast pulling these individual videos together. It's so cool to see such exciting, global brands willing to invest in & give a platform to Australian hip hop artists.”
Each of the artists included released a statement, each talking about the inspiration for their work, they are below.
“I have always been a huge fan of the NBA and the video game, as a kid I would play for hours, then fast forward years later to see my own billboard within the game while I play with my own little brothers is surreal. It’s been such an honour to work with the team at 2K and to be a part of a game that I genuinely love and grew up playing. I can’t thank the team enough and can’t wait to welcome you all to the 2K with ‘Big Swish’,” said Chillinit.
Sahxl says, "When I collab with brands, it has to be authentic. I play NBA 2K all the time in the studio, so for me this project just made sense. It was a bit of a challenge producing the beat with my producer Sid Mallick, as it was our first-time using basketball sound effects to put together a song, so it was a really different process. The final track sounded dope though, and it was fun experimenting with new experiences and themes to help this song come together. It was a pleasure being invited!"
“The song “Ball On ‘Em” is a track that I wrote that was intended on amping people up and a shout out to haters that they couldn’t stop nothing. Referencing brother Patty Mills this is dedicated to him for defying all odds, somebody we as a First Nations community are constantly inspired by and in awe of. The lyric “pass it to them young ones, they gon’ run the game strong” is saying that this is and has always been bigger than us… We got to pass that torch over to our youth when our time is up and know that our future is in good hands, I’ve got to give a massive shout out to Rhyan Clapham (DOBBY) for going ham on the beat, we had so much fun in the studio working on this track,” said, Barkaa.
