Arron Afflalo Remembers Selling Burned CDs to Kendrick Lamar

Though the jury is still out on how listeners and labels will navigate the subscription streaming world, the new medium has curbed many kinds of bootlegging. No longer are file-sharing networks or torrents the only place to access new major-label albums for free--and no longer does the RIAA feel the need to launch wildly unpopular lawsuits against individuals. But those who grew up around the turn of the century will never forget a world where unauthorized, burned CDs were a gold mine. (This writer may or may not still be eating off of Tha Carter 3.) Today (Oct. 16), we get a testimonial to that era from an unlikely source: New York Knicks shooting guard Arron Afflalo.

Writing for The Players' Tribune, an outlet where athletes tell stories in their own words, the Compton-bred Afflalo remembers his adolescent CD burning enterprise. ("If you heard “In Da Club” coming from a car stereo in Compton in 2003, there’s a really good chance that CD was burned by Arron Afflalo," the ballplayer writes. "50, I’m sorry man, but I probably took $200 from you that summer.") Afflalo famously attended school with Kendrick Lamar--the latter honored Afflalo with his good kid, m.A.A.d. city bonus track "Black Boy Fly." It turns out Kendrick may owe some of his formative rap listening to the entrepreneurial Afflalo. "This one guy from my school named Kendrick Duckworth was really into hip-hop," he remembers. "He asked me to burn him Jay Z’s Reasonable Doubt." Kendrick and Jay Z finally appeared together on the "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" remix in early 2013, where the cover art depicted two greats from Afflalo's field: Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.