LA Lakers legend Kobe Bryant featured in a Nike commercial alongside rapper Kanye West, back in 2012. The famous Nike video included a hilarious conversation between the two, leading to the iconic “What the f**k does that mean Kobe Bryant?” response from the rapper. The pair proceeded to become good friends over the years. The rapper was even asked about their relationship in an interview with CBS, back in 2020.
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He ended up claiming that he was simply the rapper version of Kobe Bryant, who was the basketball version of him. Talking about the similarities between himself and Kobe, West claimed that both had had a similar journey and were looking to bring about a “paradigm shift in humanity.”
Kanye West broke down similarities with Kobe Bryant in 2020
This hilarious 2012 ad featured Kanye West attending a leadership talk by Kobe. He asked a series of questions, starting with how much more Kobe wanted from him, and how many more records his album could break.
Almost, in a matter-of-fact manner, Kobe continued to respond “more.” An exasperated Kanye responds by claiming that he was already the best. To this, Kobe had a simple question:
“But are you a different animal? And the same beast?”
This prompted the exasperated “What does that mean Kobe Bryant?” response. Bryant looked happy with the job that he had done, and simply said, “You’re welcome.”
The hilarious advert apparently led to a friendship between the two. Kanye, years later, claimed that there were quite a few similarities between them:
“He was the basketball version of me, and I was the rap version of him, and that’s facts! We got the commercials that prove it. No one else can say this. We came up at the same time, together. And now it’s like, yeah, I might have had a reputation for screaming about things—but I’m not taking any mess for an answer now. We’re about to build a paradigm shift for humanity. We ain’t playing with ’em. We bringing home the trophies.”
Talking about “bringing home the trophies” and bringing about a shit for humanity, Kanye truly believes that his journey has been very similar to Bryant’s. He claimed that the way he looks at life is heavily inspired by Kobe, calling his philosophies a “game changer.”
Kobe and Kanye acted in a 2011 film together
The 2012 ad might have proved iconic in a lot of senses. However, the two personalities had been on the screen together before as well.
This was on the 2011 movie, “The Black Mamba. The two starred as themselves alongside Danny Trejo and Bruce Willis.
Nike created and distributed the short comedy back in February 2011, and had a runtime of 6 minutes. It is evident that while the two personalities are most known for their ad together, they already had experience acting alongside each other.
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