Fab Five and Hip Hop Culture

The "30 for 30" documentary series on ESPN is one of my favorite things on TV because I'm a big fan of seeing sports from a different angle. Thinking about examples of how we can see hip hop culture and sport interacting, the first thing that came to my mind was the documentary on the Fab Five that played at the University of Michigan in the early '90s. Throughout the documentary there are numerous examples of how the players were influenced by hip hop through the music they listened to and how this both positively and negatively affected how they were viewed in society as a whole. In the clip (start watching at 8 minutes in) you see examples of how the media stereotyped the players and judged them based off of the hip hop music they listened to and the type of clothing they wore on and off the court. This part of the documentary shows how the players embraced hip hop culture and how they were one of the first groups of players to do so as cultural icons of the time. In some ways this helped raise their popularity in younger the generation, but it also caused others to be turned off by their brashness. At around the ten and a half minute mark, famous rapper Chuck D explains, "they (the Fab Five) were the first to come out and say '[hip hop] is our thing, its who we are...we going to make a statement and play ball in a way people aren't accustomed to seeing'".