Hank Aaron and Jackie Rob/Cool Papa Bell and Hank Leonard/Yeah, they set the stage/But the baddest of them all was prob'ly Satchel Paige/Yeah, clear as the air you breathe/This beat is ballin' like the Negro League

click to enlarge

That isn't the rap of your usual children's entertainer - some kind of square, after-school-special hip-hop dabbler. Far from it. That verse is intoned by none other than the Doggfather himself, Snoop Dogg, on a compilation album of raps and R&B out today benefiting Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Like most of the songs on True to the Game, Snoop's contribution, "Tha Bigg League," pairs a famous artist with one or more not-so-famous artists (the Hustle Boys, in this case). Unlike all but one other song on the album (Young Joc's clever crunk banger "Knock It Out Da Park"), Snoop's joint is actually about baseball.

The other tracks are true to the game, no doubt, but it's not America's pastime -- unless, that is, hip-hop is suddenly more popular than baseball (hmmm). Love, lust, talking big, walking tall and getting down in the club are more the type of base covered on this album, which hits stores today on the brand-new, East Coast-based philanthropic label Stadium Entertainment. But don't worry, mom and dad, the album is free of the profanity, violence and crimetalk that pervades so much commercial rap.

The idea began three years ago as a longshot dream in the head of Negro Leagues Museum marketing director Bob Kendrick. He knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, and eventually Stadium Entertainment came aboard and began tapping artists from all over the industry -- Talib Kweli, Ludacris, Chingy, Big Boi, Macy Gray and Kanye West, to name some of the luminaries -- to contribute at no cost to the museum songs that haven't appeared anywhere else, save one. (The exception is "Beam Me Up," by Tay Dizm, featuring T-Pain and Rick Ross, which came out last year as a single for T-Pain's label Nappy Boy Digital.) A portion of the proceeds from sales of True will benefit the museum.

"Hopefully this will be the first of three to four volumes of releases in partnership between Stadium Entertainment and the museum," Kendrick says.

If all the releases are this cool, by all means, keep 'em coming, Bob. The cover may not scream hard beats and hella bling, but the tracks inside are short on neither. In between commercial rap tracks like "Pretty Girls," on which Ludacris describes an onion booty that makes him want to cry, there are soaring R&B slow jams, like the achey "Still Hurts," featuring Macy Gray and Marsha Ambrosius. It's the kind of album your kids might actually thank you for -- and then go get freaky to.

Kind of wild, huh? When the project was announced all over the 'net last August, it was certainly unexpected. (The album was originally scheduled for an October release but was delayed.) Since then, articles in the Star as recently as last week have blasted the museum for thus far failing to find an elder-baseball spokesman to replace widely loved NLBM celebrity advocate Buck O'Neil, who died in 2006 at the age of 94. But even those critics have to agree that the museum needs to reach young people just as much as it needs to please baseball history fans. Kendrick says True to the Game is all about the kids -- and it's about also about finding "non-traditional streams of revenue" for the museum.

click to enlarge

• G.O.O.D. sport: Rapper GLC visited the NLBM on Monday.

"You're probably not gonna find another museum that's doing a hip-hop salute, you know what I mean?" he says.

The first artists to join the salute were Kanye West and fellow Chicago rapper GLC, the latest signee to West's label, G.O.O.D. Records. The two contribute "The Big Screen," a signature-Kanye drum knocker that's about a young woman going to Hollywood to become a star. GLC (short for "Gangsta L. Crisis") came to Kansas City this past Sunday and Monday to talk with the local media about the album's release. I got some face time Monday afternoon in the museum with G, Kendrick and a room full of happy museum people. After the jump, I've posted some excerpts from the interview about True to the Game. Excerpts from the Q&A focusing on GLC and his music will be posted in a separate entry.

The Pitch: Cubs or Sox?

GLC: Sox, man, I'm from the South Side. But the thing is, due the fact that I'm from Chicago, anybody that's coming from Chicago that's doing good, I'm for him, period. I also like the Sox hat better, I like the colors, they look cool. But the Cubs, I like the "c" on that. That's a tad bit confused, but I'd say South Side

Bob Kendrick: Turn around, the Cubs are hanging over your shoulder! [Points to the two paintings on the wall of Buck O'Neil in a Cubs jersey. Room breaks into laughter.]

GLC: Aw, good look! Check it out! Chicago, that's what I am.

You and Kanye were the first to agree to this project. How did it come about?

GLC: Wow, I did not know that we were the first. It came about by a friend of ours, a mutual friend by the name of No I.D. He approached us with the project and told us what was about, and we simply agreed to do it.

Did you know it was for this benefit?

GLC: Yeah, that was the key point. He told us a portion of the proceeds would go to the Negro Leagues Museum, and I guess to reserve the culture and to expand it, to let everybody know what's going on, because there's a lot of people that don't even know this museum exists. So we can use the power of hip-hop and the power of our voices as well as our influence to bring everything to the forefront and just shine a little bit more light -- which may be a whole lot more light -- I'm just being modest. Maybe it will send people in and have people wondering and just wanting to know, you know? So just to be a part of this, man, I'm honored, 'cause I'm about to be a part of history.

How does it benefit you to participate in this project?

GLC: It benefits me because this is something that I'll be able to tell my grandkids about, this will be a part of my legacy. ... This is a great tool, a great mechanism, not only to teach other people about the Negro Leagues, this was also a great mechanism to teach me about it, for me to be here and actually get to walk around the museum, to learn the history, to learn about what the players had to endure on their paths to the glory road, you know? And just for them being so defiant, how they defied the obstacles and defied the odds, and they were entrepreneurs and they were great sportsmen -- but not only great sportsmen, they were also pillars of the community. This is something that I aspire to be. So I feel like, what greater foundation is there that was laid down for me to follow than the foundation that the Negro Leagues players laid down? I think it's pretty cool.

Did you know much about the Negro Leagues before this?

GLC: I knew very little. I knew about Satchel Paige, I knew about Jackie Robinson, but I got to learn about "Cool Papa" Bell, I got to learn about Buck. Like they say he lived to, what was it, 95?

Kendrick: He was about a month shy of his 95th birthday.

GLC: And this man was an athlete, so you gotta think, all that wear and tear on your body doin' this and that, you gotta think of the spirit. Just for him to be a part of the league, to play in the league, to see him in this museum and now he's in the Hall of Fame. Just to see people come and go all those years, that's almost a century, and to live through all that and be a part of where it started all the way up to where it is now, that's amazing. That's something I definitely look up to.

Kendrick: One of the things that Buck would always talk about was the fact that he lived long enough to see change. And fortunately for him he lived long enough to not only see change, but to enjoy the change, and then it was always a constant challenge for him to empower others to impart change. And that's why he was always so adamant when he was speaking to young people, challenging them to get their education because they would be the next change-bearers in our society, and so, you know, it was a very fruitful life for Buck. I don't know anyone who lived more than Buck O'Neil. He got every ounce.

GLC: I love the way he said that, because the thing is, life is not about the years in your life, it's the life in your years. And for you to live to 95, and you have all that life in your years, you've lived, like, 95 lifetimes, you know, and that's amazing man. To be a part of this -- I'm just excited, man, bottom line. I'm not gonna try and say the smooth, cool rapper stuff -- it feels great. I feel good. I feel like, "GLC, so whatcha gonna do after this?" I'm like, "I'm goin' to Disney World!"

• Kendrick and GLC, before the altar of Buck.

Do you know of many hip-hop artists who get to participate in cultural awareness projects like this?

GLC: I know in my immediate circle, like Kanye has an Ernie Barnes painting in his house, and his mom, she always spoke about history, as well as my brother -- they spoke about the hardships of African-Americans throughout American history. They spoke about the Negro Leagues when I was a kid. They told me things here and there that had me feeling like, when I played for Jackie Robinson West [Little League] as a kid, I felt I really did something. I was walkin' around the neighborhood, I had my blue jacket with the gold letters on it that said "West," I was feelin' like the man. Even back then, we all aspired to be a part of something, and what better thing to be a part of than something good? ... Just to be a part of something that's a change for the good, it's gratifying. I can never say that I'm too busy to do something that'll uplift my people, uplift my community, because that's part of my responsibility as an artist. People are like, "I don't wanna be harassed, or I don't wanna go speak to these kids," but where would you be without them as an athlete or as an artist? Especially if you can do something that's for the uplifting of everybody -- how could you not have time for that?

Is that something you did a lot of before this project, or did your awareness increase?

GLC: I've been aware. I've spoken at high schools and group homes and given money to social groups and communities. I've done a lot for my community prior to this project. That's why, when it was time for me to be a part of this project, I was like, "Oh yeah," 'cause this is something that I do already. And now, because of the knowledge I've gained coming to this museum, I feel like it's part of my destiny -- I must continue to uplift and enlighten people as opposed to glorifying destruction. People are broke. It's a recession right now, so, like, at the end of the day, we're all looking for an escape, and music is a tool. ... The music on this soundtrack is enlightening, it's inspiring. It'll make you feel like you can conquer the world. I'm just happy to be a part of it, because that's what the Negro League players did - they conquered the world. Like, people said that the Major Leaguers were the first to go to Japan, but Bob showed me that that was incorrect. I saw pictures of the Negro League players like seven years prior to the MLB players going over there.

Kendrick: That's true. Negro Leaguers would go to Japan and play [starting in] 1927, which was well before the Major Leaguers ever went over. And those are the things that we try to tell with this story. We call them the "untold truths," so to speak, and people are fascinated by that - that they went to Japan, that they started night baseball years before the Major Leaguers were playing under the lights, and those kind of advents ... those kind of things are the parallels between the Negro Leagues and hip-hop. You think about the mass appeal that has occurred with hip-hop. Hip-hop is no longer just urban music - these are suburban kids who are listening to this. The Negro Leagues did the exact same thing.

When you start to look at the stands at Negro League games, you saw black and white folks sitting together, watching the best baseball being played in this country. It wasn't always like that. It didn't start off that way -- they started off playing to a black audience, but then you put product out that other people wanted to see. ... It's like Buck always said, when you were watching a Negro Leagues game, you couldn't get up and go to the concession stand because you might miss something that you'd never seen before. And so when you talk about that kind of flavor that they brought, and the style of play and the charisma and the energy that came from this game and then the influence the game had on popular culture, mainstream culture and major league baseball, it's tremendous.

Hip-hop and baseball are both forms of entertainment....

Kendrick: What the Negro Leagues understood even more than Major League Baseball was that this was entertainment. That's why Satchel Paige was so charismatic, and the things you saw him do in the Negro Leagues, he would not have been able to do in the Major Leagues ... You weren't gonna call the outfield in and sit the infield down to strike out a hitter. You weren't going to see that kind of thing in the Major Leagues. Or, to take it even further, as Buck would say, if a guy went in the hole, flipped the ball behind his back to start a double play - they were doing that in the Negro Leagues. But the Major Leaguers would've said that was showboating. But as Buck as always said, "It's only showboating if you can't do it." ... It did have a bravado to it. These guys were very confident in their ability to play this game. You'll always hear me talk about Buck because I was around him for so long, and he always said [the Negro Leagues players] never thought the major leagues were better than their league. They never thought that, but everybody else did. And so that's why they aspired to get to the major leagues, so they could prove that they could play the game as well as anybody else could.

GLC: Yeah, he showed me how, about the night games -- they had lights with generators that they would pack into their buses so that they can play a night game wherever they wanted to, whenever they wanted to. That was amazing, like, "They say, They can't do this, they can't do that. Well, we're gonna do whatever we want to."

What will young people get out of True to the Game that they won't get out of the other hip-hop albums they'll see next to it in stores?

GLC: They'll get a really, really fresh song by GLC and Kanye called "The Big Screen," [laughs] along with a lot of other songs by really cool artists. They'll get really cool artwork. They'll also get, if they have a nice little sound system in their car, and go get a girl and take her on a date, they'll get some action and probably have a really nice time. They'll get the acceptance from their parents, listening to this, 'cause this is not like, "Hey! Get nekkid, yeah!" This is smooth music. This is music that you can play at a family reunion and everybody can listen to it, from like this size, two years old to the older people. They told me that Buck, he listened to all kinds of music. It's good when you have music that really touches the soul and inspires people to do well. ... You'll have more knowledge, wisdom and understanding of the Negro Leagues, and you may be inspired to go online or come visit the museum physically. It lures people in. And man, when I came to the museum, I was blown away. It's like you're really there. I felt like Marty McFly, Back to the Future style.

So in 50 years, when you're on the board of the National Hip-Hop Museum, what is that museum going to be like?

GLC: Aw man, I'm not gonna say that it's gonna be a direct bite out of this museum, but we're gonna copy a lot of the stuff they have goin' on here. It will be Kurtis Blow - I might even have Kurtis Blow original Jheri curl activator. You go downstairs and you see Satchel Paige has his Royal Crown, you might see the Care Free Curl, yellow-and-red bottle, Kurtis Blow. You might see Run DMC's Adidas, autographed, the Tougher than Leather outfits. You might see Whodini, the guy -- I think his name was Sergio -- the dude who had the cowboy hat, you know what I'm sayin'? You might see KRS-One, prior to him wearing the dreads. You might even see a molded sculpture of KRS-One's nose, or something like that up in there. Microphones, all kinds of stuff, man. It's gonna be really, really dope stuff - and you're gonna see a life-sized statue of GLC, lookin' real fresh. Kanye, all the greats of the game. You'll see Jay-Z, you'll see everyone who had something to do with it. You'll see how hip-hop brought people together, all different ethnicities, all different nationalities, people just came together under the common bond, the pursuit of happiness that only hip-hop could bring us. That's how it'll be, and it'll look real fresh, like how this museum looks. But if all goes well, we'll have a Peach Tree Restaurant down the street.