Hip-Hop 50: ESPN celebrates five decades of hip-hop music - ESPN

In honor of hip-hop turning 50, ESPN tapped the culture's top voices to write about their favorite athlete name-drops in hip-hop history. Below is a collection of essays.

How Jay-Z and Jordan defined the blueprint for greatness

by Mychal Denzel Smith

There's Jay-Z, Michael Jordan, and everyone else. They will forever be considered GOATs and the stories we tell will always fuel their legends.

Jay-Z, Jordan and the stories we tell to fuel GOAT status

When Nicki Minaj crowned Lisa Leslie the baddest

by Lauren Michele Jackson

When «Barbie World» rapper Nicki Minaj crowned Lisa Leslie, the first woman to dunk in a women's professional game, the baddest.

Nicki Minaj saw herself in Lisa Leslie's display of excellence

How Ric Flair influenced a new generation of drip

by Morgan Jerkins

There's a reason so many rappers love Ric Flair. «The Nature Boy» embodies some of the best characteristics of hip-hop — the flamboyance, the flashiness and the braggadocio.

With all that drip, Ric Flair and Offset could cause a flood

E-40's unwavering dedication to Bay Area sports

by Branden J. Peters

Among the hip-hop contingent, there isn't anyone more synonymous with sports than Vallejo, California, native Earl «E-40» Stevens is with the NBA's Golden State Warriors, MLB's San Francisco Giants and the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.

When it comes to Bay Area sports teams, E-40's love is unquestioned

Kendrick Lamar on former NBA coach Phil Jackson

by Jayson Buford

Big Sean's «Control» (2013), which features Kendrick Lamar, raises the stakes of rap competition to the point of him sounding like a lecturer and has a lyric that made Phil Jackson publicly comment on rap, perhaps for the first time ever. Lamar, in the middle of his