Sportswriter Mike Wise Clarifies His Anti-Hip-Hop Tweets

Last week, before the second round game of the NBA Playoffs between the Washington Wizards and Indiana Pacers, Washington Post columnist Mike Wise—a man who has been covering the NBA for both the Post and New York Times since the mid-1990s—began tweeting about his dislike for the "gangsta rap" being played in the Pacers' locker room. "Pacers' pre-game locker room is pounding gangsta rap with Tiger and the Game," he tweeted. "Apparently the n-bomb debate is not happening in Indiana." A predictable wave of negativity quickly resulted, with Wise receiving a number of insulting tweets centered around his own whiteness, turning him into, as he put it, "Clint Eastwood, 'Get off my lawn.'"

The wave of tweets prompted a response from Wise six minutes later, which read, "Oh, my bad, dawgs. It's TYGA and The Game. And it's straight-up filthy, like where some guys on the team look uncomfortable listening." His tweets began to go viral—he attempted to clarify with one more three minutes later—and the headlines across the Internet followed the Old-White-Guy-Doesn't-Understand-Rap-Music narrative that had quickly become the hive mind on Twitter. In an attempt to clarify his thoughts—and to question his suggestion that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver get involved in eradicating rap music from NBA locker rooms—XXL spoke to Wise on the phone to attempt to have this discussion in a forum that's a little more open to elaboration than Twitter. —Dan Rys

Ed. Note: Wise wrote a column about the situation for the Post on Sunday, which can be found here.

XXL: What happened that day?
Mike Wise: I was in the Pacers' locker room and the music was blaring; one player was in one corner, there were a couple other players and reporters milling around.

Was the locker room open to the public?
There's media availability before every game where they allow reporters in for, I think it's a 30 to 45 minute window.

Your issue with the music was with the lyrics?
Yeah. In many locker rooms it's too loud, too, where you can't ask questions or have a conversation with somebody because it gets too loud. But yeah, it was more the lyrics.

Was this an isolated thing for you? Hip-hop and the NBA, specifically, have always had a very close relationship.
No; I've covered the NBA since the mid-90s. I first covered them with the Nets for the New York Times, then I covered the Knicks for a couple years, then I was the NBA columnist, so I'm very familiar with that relationship, and I saw the marriage of the NBA to hip-hop culture probably in the mid-90s. I think at that point I was in my mid-30s—and I wrote this in a column—and the Knicks would come out to [The Notorious B.I.G.'s] "Mo Money, Mo Problems," and it was [Charles] Oakley would be dancing in the layup line; it was hilarious. And everybody would play Biggie or something, maybe even more hardcore, in the locker room.

At the time it was almost a rite of passage; if you understood the message or maybe a lyric that a player liked or felt connected to, all of a sudden you were connected to that person, and it was almost like, "Oh this is cool, I'm in the sanctuary, I'm down with the fellas," you know? And you know, you get older, you listen to the words, and you realize we live in a little more, hopefully, time of elevated consciousness when it comes to stuff. And you start hearing it differently, and you go, "Well, hold on, that's N-bomb this, N-Bomb that, that's B-s and hoes," and it was just like, wow, that's not how I remember it. [Laughs]

What was it about this one incident that made you start tweeting about it?
I probably could have tweeted about it whenever in various locker rooms two and three years ago, it just never dawned on me. One of the things that upset me about the characterization of my tweets and how I felt about it was it was like selectively edited. And it was omitted that there was also a young woman in there and you could tell she was offended by it, and she looked at one of the players, and he's putting his hands up like, "Uh, I don't know what to say, I didn't put it on." And she's looking at me. So I wasn't the only person in there going, "Man, this is pretty hardcore."

You said that some of the players looked uncomfortable.
Yeah, some of the players as well. And they didn't say anything, it was just kind of like one of those eyerolls, like, "Eh, that's what he wants to listen to." I never got the sense that there was some great revolt going on, but I've been in many locker rooms where even coaches and players have been like, "Oh, man, you're going to listen to that again?" And we're not talking white players or coaches, we're talking about all different ethnicities. I understand that this is part of many players' identities, I just think it's like anything. When different people are in there—or even their teammates during the two or three hours we're not in there—I just think there's an issue of being mutually respectful. Especially in light of [NBA Commissioner] Adam Silver showing that we should be mutually respectful as owners, too.

Right; there is a difference between hip-hop lyrics and overt racism, like the Donald Sterling situation, though.
Oh, certainly, certainly. But the idea that the argument after those tweets in the headlines became, "White Writer Twitter Rants About Black Music; Should His Opinion Matter?" The idea that that became the narrative and that we can't have an honest discussion about whether some vile, nasty lyrics inside the locker room—which is, by the way, a public work space for at least a half hour a day during games—the idea that we can't have that discussion, that that's off-limits, is patently ridiculous to me.

But in a locker room setting, shouldn't the players be allowed to listen to whatever they want before a game?
Like I said, during the time that they're allotted that the media don't come in, I think, sure. I think that's the argument. If you believe it's the players' sanctuary and everybody that walks in there should be prepared to hear whatever vulgar, coarse language and part of that culture that they should be able to hear, if they believe that's what we're supposed to do, that's a discussion. I would argue that the time spent in there is a public workspace, just as if you opened your offices up, or just as if we were working in the convenience store together. The same rules would apply.

In fact, if you see what happened to the Chicago White Sox a few years ago, where they had a bunch of blowup dolls and strategically-placed bats around them with little notes, "We gotta just push through," because they were in a hitting slump, that caused a huge stir when they opened up the locker room to the media. It wasn't just women reporters, guy reporters were like, "Come on. Really?" So I do think there's a decorum; I don't think they need to be buttoned down, [but] I think there's a give and take in any situation like that.

What was the reaction you got from the initial tweet? Because that seemed to be what sparked off the Twitter reaction.
I don't think anybody wanted to have an honest discourse. I think people wanted to look at the color of my skin and turn me into Clint Eastwood, "Get off my lawn." That's the sense I got. And you know what, that part of it was hilarious to me, because if anybody has read me in the Washington Post for 10 years or the New York Times for 10 years, I spend 364 days a year getting hate mail from American Spectator subscribers, and Fox News people going, "You liberal pansy, grow a pair. Who cares about the name of a football team? Who cares about gays in sports?" I mean, that part of it was hilarious to me, I gotta admit. It was hurtful, but it was also hilarious.

The second tweet you sent made it seem like you were making fun of the reaction. "Oh, my bad, dawgs. It's TYGA and The Game."
Yeah, if I had to do that one over again... My friends that know me laughed. I think that could come across as condescending, and if it did, that part is something I'm sorry about. But everything else was genuine, it was heartfelt, and I meant it. I think it's an honest discussion we need to have about it. I didn't call for the banning of gangsta lyrics, I didn't call for Dr. Dre Beats to be burned. They can probably put them on and listen to it in their own privacy—I know a lot of players do that now, as opposed to the locker room playing it for everybody—I think that would be more respectful. I've got stuff on my iPod that I'm not proud about, but it's not stuff I would play in a public setting.

The idea that we can't have a conversation about it because of who said it bothers me the most. If a Stephen A. [Smith], or a [Mike] Wilbon, or maybe Jason Whitlock would tweet it out, the worst they may be called was Bill Cosby. They wouldn't be called what I was called.

Did anyone from the Pacers or the NBA respond to your tweets?
No, I never heard anything for the Pacers. The guy who works for the NBA, who works under Silver, who knows me, he was pretty amused by all the people that wrote about it. But I didn't get any brushback. I had some people say stuff like—and I think it's a valid point—"How come people aren't going to war over porn like this?" It's legal, it's degrading to both genders, there's more mass consumption of that than there is hip-hop.

Is this something that you expect the commissioner to address at all?
To be honest, I haven't been in the locker rooms like I used to, but because the Wizards are hot in the playoffs, I think I've been in more NBA locker rooms in the last... I usually cover maybe The Finals, and then I'll go to a bunch of Wizards games, but I don't go [in the locker room], so I don't know how prevalent it is. I know it used to be. It just was very noticeable that day for some reason, and I don't know why. It slipped right by me before that. I guess I'm saying, I don't know if it's as big a problem as I'm making it out to be. It might be very isolated. But if I'm the Pacers, I would definitely have that discussion. I don't mind what you guys listen to, just listen to it in your headphones.

What do you think the standard should be? Or how would you reform that?
I think only Lynyrd Skynyrd. No, I'm kidding. [Laughs] I don't care if it's Game or Jeezy, or anybody, but if it's gonna get violent, explicit, use the bleeped out version. The watered down movie channel version, where they take all the f-bombs out of A Few Good Men. I like a lot of that music like a lot of people, but if you consider that a public workspace, I don't think it's good for the image of the NBA or the working relationship between a lot of writers, journalists, cameramen and the players. I mean, the reason we're supposed to be in there is to develop relationships with some of those people, and they're supposed to develop relationships with us. That's part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, believe it or not.

And while a young black millionaire doesn't have to have anything in common with me or want to get to know me, if I want to get to know them or even have that chance, it would be nice to talk to someone without the bravado of Tyga blaring in the background, and I can just get that person, authentic, one-on-one. And you know what? I would probably find out that his story is a lot deeper than N-Bomb this, N-Bomb that, hook. His story would probably be a lot more layered and deeper than just some lyric that somebody came up with that he likes. I could probably get to know him more through that than I ever could through a Tyga and Game lyric.