Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray has been one of the standout players in the NBA Bubble since the season restarted. Not only is his basketball in top form, but his musical horizon is also expanding.
With all the NBA teams in the same place at the same time, 23-year-old Murray has had the opportunity to discover music through players of all ages. In particular, he cites Portland Trail Blazers star Carmelo Anthony for getting him into classic Hip Hop.
“Sometimes when I go back and if I’m getting a haircut, a lot of guys say, “[Car]melo [Anthony] likes to listen to a lot of the old music, most music,” he said. “And then, that kind of put me on where I’m like, ‘OK, let me go back and look at my collection, to all the music that I listen to.’”
He continued, “With all the players here, everybody is so different from each other [and] everybody listens to different stuff. It definitely brought my mind in terms of Method Man, I listen to Wu-Tang [Clan] and Method Man and they’re showing me tracks from Method Man that I didn’t even know. So, stuff like that where I can broaden my mind, broaden my listening to different rappers, different artists and just kind of get that feel. Like, I put on Raekwon the other day. I don’t even know Raekwon‘s album, but I know a couple songs on it are just fire.”
Murray says he’s currently listening to a “whole lotta Weezy, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Jay-Z [and] Drake” and also Eminem’s‘most recent albums.
“Been listening to a lot of artists’ older tracks that people be forgetting about,” he said. “Ain’t gonna lie. I gotta throw Eminem in there, too. I been bumping him, too. [I’ve] been going back through older albums. Kamikaze and Music To Be Murdered By are tough, though.”
On Sunday (August 30), Murray delivered a powerful postgame interview after dropping 50 points in Game 6 against the Utah Jazz. An emotional Murray spoke out on police brutality and honored George Floyd and Breonna Taylor with the shoes he was wearing.
“I just want to win,” Murray said. “In life you find things that hold value to you, and things to fight for, and we’ve found something worth fighting for, as the NBA as a collective unit. I used these shoes as a symbol to me to keep fighting all around the world. They give me a lot of power to keep fighting.”
He added, “It’s not just in America. It happens everywhere. For us to come together in the NBA, it doesn’t take one meeting, it takes a couple of meetings, a few meetings, it takes phone calls, it takes persistence.”
Watch the clip below.