T.I. has weighed the pros and the cons of investing into sports — but unlike many of his Hip Hop colleagues, he has no interest in owning an NBA team.
That’s the revelation the Rubber Band Man made on the latest episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq, which dropped on Wednesday (February 28).
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“So many of my contemporaries — like Nelly, you know, he got a piece of Charlotte — and Usher’s got a piece of Cleveland,” he began around the 29-minute mark. “You know, people be asking me, ‘would I ever do it?’ And I don’t think I would, you know? Because I just can’t see me taking so much of my money, investing it in something, and I can’t do what the fuck I wanna do.”
He continued: “I just can’t imagine that. I’m gonna put my money into something where I can dictate, and I can determine, the way it’s gonna go.”
Nelly and Usher aren’t the only rappers who have invested their money in NBA teams.
Back in June, J. Cole became a part owner of the Charlotte Hornets after Michael Jordan sold his majority share in the team.
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According to a statement released by the Hornets on June 16, the Fayetteville rapper is part of The Buyer Group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall alongside country singer Eric Church.
The Buyer Group reportedly purchased the franchise from MJ for $3 billion after the Chicago Bulls icon bought the team in 2010 for $275 million.
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Jordan retained a minority stake in the team and remains a figure around the Hornets, per ESPN.
Cole, a North Carolina native, has been a courtside mainstay at Hornets games over the years while supporting his home-state team. As a lover of hoops and ambassador for the game, J. Cole’s involvement shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Elsewhere on Shaq’s podcast, T.I. revealed that he and DMX were planning to collaborate before the legendary rapper’s untimely death.
“X came to my house like two weeks before he died. We were planning to work together,” he said. “He came to the studio and I was recording something else. I think by the time I had finished he had to run to another engagement.”
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The Grand Hustle general continued: “And then one time he said he wanted to go to the studio but I was at the house with the kids and I couldn’t get out, so he said, ‘I’ma just pull up on you, man.’”
“He came by and we just sat up all night ’til four, five in the morning, talking loud in the kitchen. I was having margaritas, I think he might have had a beer. Smoking and chilling, just talking like we known each other forever. That was the first time we had ever really [met].”
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He added: “We were talking about kids and he left town that day and I left town, I was taking my kids to Orlando. And we was on the phone planning to meet back up and work again. I think maybe two, three days later, he had passed.”
