By Joël Pütz | Sports journalist
Legend of French sport, Tony Parker, however, is less unanimous in France when it comes to extra-sporting. Close to the former Spurs leader for a time, the sultry rapper Booba did not mince his words about him.
It's not always easy to bounce back off the field when you decide to retire. Many NBA players have quickly ended up ruined, like Allen Iverson for example… but for his part, Tony Parker never had to worry about it from a financial point of view once his career ended in the summer of 2019.
It must be said that the Spurs legend is a born businessman, he who quickly built up an address book in the business world on the advice of Magic Johnson. Having founded the Infinity 9 group and being president of ASVEL for several years, the four-time NBA champion dabbles in a bit of everything from basketball to oenology.
Booba without filter on the level of Tony Parker in rap
During his career, Parker had already shown a desire to diversify and like many of his peers, he had started in the music industry with rap albums. The commercial success was there, but the quality of its sounds has always been debated… and don't count on Booba to support it. The latter had participated in some of the player's sounds and let loose on him in the show CKO :
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I'm a fan, I went there because there was Fabolous, the NBA, the Spurs… They were bars with Tony Parker and the TP Family. Eva Longoria, she loved me, she called her dog Booba. Was Tony Parker serious about rap? He was serious, brother. At the time I was recording with Kore and he was the one who took this banana in hand.
It made me happy to make a music video with Fabolous. At the time it was a top 5 artist, in style, in everything… I found myself in San Antonio with Tim Duncan, a music video with Fabolous… I knew very well that it was a big deal. Tony Parker, bro, he's busted through the wall.
Quite a lost ball for the Hall of Famer… the “Duke” did not stop there, however, with a final brutal verdict on Parker a few moments later:
Outside of basketball, it is of no use to culture. (…) Phew player, but you have to know your place.
It's difficult to be more scathing towards TP, even if we doubt that such criticism will reach him. Despite the fairly negative critical reception of his musical work, the latter has in fact never regretted his adventure in the studios. This is not going to change now.
Tony Parker wanted to get into rap for a while, but the results were not very convincing according to Booba who was always so ruthless in his speeches. Fortunately, the leader finally confined himself to basketball.
