Jason Kidd’s riding high right now. He’s just won his second Coach of the Month Award in just five chances. He’s leading the hottest team in the Eastern Conference since January 1st. He’s a head coach of a professional basketball team, which is a pretty good job. He made a lot of money playing basketball in his career.
But he also made this, this disgusting, rhythmless, beautifully misguided bile pile of disconnected stutters.
Kidd didn’t write his lyrics, but that doesn’t excuse how awful this song is. The future Hall of Fame point guard waffles between mumbling, gargling, and somehow yelling in hushed tones over the course of four minutes. A man whose primary job requires communicating with his players made a song where he enunciates like he’s perpetually yawning.
It’s been 20 years since “What The Kidd Did,” um, slithered into stores, as part of a compilation called “B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret” that paired athletes with musicians to try to capitalize on basketball’s booming success. It was at the height of athletes trying to be musicians, right around the time Shaquille O’Neal went double-platinum. (It was before Kidd’s bleach-platinum hair, though.)
The New York Times had a chance to catch up with “Money B” (who wrote Kidd’s lyrics), Kidd, and others involved in the making of the greatest song in Jason Kidd’s discography. Check it out below. But not before listening above, over and over and over again.
The New York Times — Jason Kidd’s Bad Rap, Now 20 Years Old