Do you recognize the voice on AKA’s ‘Practice’?

Two days ago, rapper, AKA previewed and then released a new song, which will (sadly) not feature on his highly anticipated and upcoming album, Touch My Blood. 

The track, which was promoted in conjunction with Reebok and premiered on music channel, Trace, is called ‘Practice’ and it has got music and basketball fans alike pretty excited. 

The single opens with an audio clip from a 2002 post-match interview in which a then Philadephia 76ers player, Allen Iverson says the word practice a total of 22 times in the interview. 

According to ESPN editor, Matt Walks, “the now-legendary rant encapsulated Iverson for all that he was — funny, proud, indignant, exasperating, misunderstood.”

The events leading up to that interview have been chronicled in an Iverson biography written by Kent Babb and released in 2015, titled “Not A Game.” In it, Babb details the strained relationship Iverson had with his coach at the time. In fact, Iverson and his coach reportedly had a fight on the morning of that interview. They had then smoothed things over and Iverson was supposed to use the interview opportunity to allay fears that he would be traded to another team. Instead, he found himself having to defend himself against a gripe his coach had repeatedly expressed to the media – that he felt Iverson lack commitment, namely because he missed practice. 

Iverson can then be heard saying “we sitting in here — I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen: We talking about practice. Not a game. Not a game. Not a game. We talking about practice. Not a game. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it’s my last. Not the game. We talking about practice, man.”

If, as a self-proclaimed, avid Basketball fan, AKA knows this back story, one can only wonder what he’s trying to tell us and who he is talking about?

In ‘Practice,’ AKA can be heard drawing a number of parallels between his conduct as a rapper and that of a legendary athlete (not necessarily Iverson himself). Although, Iverson, who has previously done some work with Reeboks on their ‘Classics’ range, has also been credited with revolutionizing the culture of the NBA by bringing a hip-hop element to it. 

We’ll just have to wait for ‘Touch My Blood’ to see if this is the case. But if ‘Practice’ is anything to go by, we’re in for a treat. Fans have been expressing their excitement in a non-stop wave of social media posts after hearing the rapper take a break from the auto-tune and simply drop bars over an old-school inspired boom-bap type beat interlaced with some synths. 

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Main image credit: twitter.com/akaworldwide