Lil Wayne paid tribute to the late Kobe Bryant by performing his 2009 song “Kobe Bryant” at Sunday night’s BET Awards.
You can see the performance below:
Trae Young chimed in on the performance:
Bring young @TheTraeYoung
Every hooper knows this song….
RIP Kobe???? https://t.co/s2nP1x5MKB
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Bryant explained the backstory of the song in 2019 during an appearance on Alex Rodriguez and Big Cat’s podcast The Corp (h/t Insanul Ahmed of Genius.com), saying Lil Wayne contacted him after Game 6 of the 2009 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets, when Bryant scored 35 points and added 10 assists to close out the series.
Bryant said Lil Wayne told him the performance motivated him.
“[Wayne] was like, ‘I’ma do a song. Is it OK, can I do a song?'” Bryant said. “I was like, ‘All right cool.’ I just thought he was BS-ing or whatever. Before the Boston Celtics series, he sends me the song and I was like, ‘Oh, you were serious.’ OK, that’s awesome.”
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