{"id":254666,"date":"2026-06-04T02:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T02:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254666\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T02:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T02:08:19","slug":"n-b-a-finals-introduce-music-by-nicholas-britell-and-nas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254666\/","title":{"rendered":"N.B.A. Finals Introduce Music by Nicholas Britell and Nas"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Adam Silver was a child, his father received a holiday gift from NBC: a set of chimes that, when struck with a little hammer, rang with the three famous notes<\/a> of the network\u2019s theme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put it on our front hall table,\u201d Silver, the commissioner of the N.B.A., said in a recent interview. \u201cAnd just for fun, my brother and I would always play it. I certainly didn\u2019t understand anything about branding or a signature sound, but that always stayed in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, in a different household, another child got hooked on a tune. Nicholas Britell saw the movie \u201cChariots of Fire,\u201d and immediately tried to figure out its pulsating bass line and soaring melody<\/a> at his family\u2019s upright piano. Wanting to really learn it, he asked for lessons. Now a composer, he has created a slew of scores as instantly recognizable, like the soundtracks for \u201cSuccession\u201d<\/a> and \u201cMoonlight.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Britell and his brother were also huge basketball fans, raised on John Tesh\u2019s \u201cRoundball Rock\u201d<\/a> and the Alan Parsons Project\u2019s \u201cSirius\u201d<\/a> introducing the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. When Britell found himself in a meeting with Silver a couple of years ago, he told him that it was his dream to write music for the N.B.A. As it happened, Silver was hoping for the same thing.<\/p>\n

On April 18, the first day of the N.B.A. playoffs, the league dropped a 90-second spot called \u201cWhere Legacies Are Built.\u201d It looked like any other reel of old highlights, but the music was new, its accumulating intensity and exhilaration matched by a voice-over that teased: \u201cThe stage is set, the mic is on, there\u2019s only one question left to answer. Who\u2019s got something to say? Tune in, because we\u2019re about to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the name of the song playing in the background of this vid?\u201d someone commented on YouTube. \u201cBc, that sounds so fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was just a taste of the N.B.A.\u2019s partnership with Britell and Nas, who lent vocals to the video. (The rapper also appears in a spot created for the finals<\/a>, which begin on Wednesday, intoning: \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a series, this is legacy. Everything\u2019s on the line, because history is calling.\u201d) If successful, it will all lead to a new musical identity for the league, whose broadcasts are now spread across multiple platforms. It could benefit from consistent branding, whether a two-second tag or a minute-long promo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking to create,\u201d Britell said, \u201cis some sort of sonic musical landscape that can kind of unify everyone\u2019s experience of the league, in all the places that the league could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

DOES A SPORT have a sound? If you think so, musical branding probably has something to do with it. Football is associated with assaultive, brassy punches thanks to Johnny Pearson\u2019s \u201cHeavy Action\u201d<\/a> and the N.F.L.\u2019s music on Fox<\/a>. Golf has an entirely different vibe because of Dave Loggins\u2019s pastoral theme<\/a> for the Masters Tournament, while the Olympic Games have a border-transcending nobility seeded by the fanfares of Leo Arnaud<\/a> and John Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Silver was looking to commission new music for the N.B.A., he sought advice from the media executive and podcaster Tommy Alter, who introduced him to Britell and became the composer\u2019s creative partner and producer on the project. At Silver and Britell\u2019s first meeting, they listened to a variety of sports themes, including \u201cRoundball Rock,\u201d which had disappeared from the league\u2019s broadcasts in the early 2000s but resurfaced last year after its licensing was overhauled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI received an enormous number of emails from fans,\u201d Silver said of the song\u2019s return. \u201cThey were thrilled that John Tesh was back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, there was a lot of enthusiasm within the N.B.A. for the new project. Britell hosted Alter and players at his home, shared some of what he had composed and talked about what kind of music they liked, \u201cwhether to pump up or whatever the mood may be,\u201d Alter said.\u201d Hip-hop was to be expected, but there are also players like the San Antonio Spurs\u2019 Victor Wembanyama, better known as Wemby, who loves \u201cStar Wars.\u201d (In a role reversal, he was excited to be in the company of Britell, who wrote the \u201cAndor\u201d soundtrack.)<\/p>\n

What Britell came up with wasn\u2019t a single theme but, in his words, a sonic landscape: modular bits of music that can be isolated, layered and expanded for different purposes. (The 90-second playoffs spot is an extravagant example of what happens when it all comes together.) At its core is a downward phrase of four notes.<\/p>\n

The notes roll and fall like a ball gently spinning as it\u2019s dribbled. You can imagine the motif standing on its own as a tag during broadcasts, like the NBC chimes. In the spot it repeats, catchily, over rhythmic low strings reminiscent of the foundational beating pulse in the \u201cChariots of Fire\u201d theme.<\/p>\n

At first there is a sense of persistence, but as the music continues it also builds with ever-higher stakes and drama in its harmonies and stabbing strings. Then a hip-hop beat enters; no one involved could imagine an N.B.A. sound without it. \u201cHip-hop voices and influence has always gone hand in hand with the N.B.A.,\u201d Nas said in an email interview. \u201cThey are married to each other in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elements of this music can be transformed for specific moments during a broadcast or a big event like the playoffs. \u201cThere\u2019s an inherent sort of story shape to a game,\u201d Britell said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s an archetype to what a season looks like. But the specifics of that are unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like any soundtrack, Britell\u2019s music has the power to subtly guide your emotions along the way. When he was experimenting with some old footage of players sitting on a bench and looking out onto the court, he found that when he added a bit of music, \u201cimmediately you\u2019re like, Oh my god, these people have worked their whole lives at such a high level to get right there to that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting at the piano in his home studio on the Upper West Side, Britell demonstrated how, with a shift in harmonic language, the chords of the playoffs spot could become soft underscoring. The downward arpeggio could be chopped and screwed, a hip-hop technique of slowing down and distorting music that he used in \u201cMoonlight,\u201d to spin out new themes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many ways you can do something with this,\u201d Britell said. \u201cI\u2019m still curious myself, what people respond to and what the league is interested in. That\u2019s why I\u2019m trying to create a landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

IT BECAME CLEAR early on that the music needed what Britell called \u201can iconic voice.\u201d The first person he thought of was Nas, whose sound has \u201ca strength and a kind of wisdom, which feels married really beautifully with the philosophy of what we were going for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nas had worked on commercials<\/a> with the N.B.A. before and was interested, he said, because he thought Britell\u2019s music was cinematic, \u201cwith the proper tone for the seriousness of what it was capturing.\u201d He helped shape the score\u2019s hip-hop sound, and the text of his vocals were a collaboration with the league, a back-and-forth of ideas about tension, greatness and legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what time it is,\u201d Nas declaims in the first spot they released. \u201cWe all do. There\u2019s a shift in tone, a change in attitude. This is different. Some call it extreme intensity. Others say it\u2019s sheer drama. But we know it by another name: This is the N.B.A. playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

He goes on to describe the elite skill and emotion of the game, and how \u201cplayers look to leave a mark on a game that lasts forever.\u201d Together with the music, Britell said, it would \u201cbring out the gravity and the intensity of this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But does it contain the essence of basketball? That would be difficult for any single project to achieve. Each team and arena has its own sonic identity. For instance, at Madison Square Garden, which in the past month has teemed with electricity and excitement over a historic run of wins<\/a> for the Knicks, the speakers are almost never silent between the organ playing by Ray Castoldi and an encyclopedic board of prerecorded cues and songs.<\/p>\n

Alter said the new music \u201cmatches the pageantry and the stakes of what\u2019s happening.\u201d And Silver felt that by including hip-hop, \u201cNick and Nas have captured the spirit of the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now up to fans whether the music will catch on, and up to the N.B.A.\u2019s broadcasters how much they want to include it. Silver said that he would like it to serve as a kind of \u201cconnective tissue,\u201d but that he wouldn\u2019t impose it on them. \u201cWe recognize we\u2019re part of something larger, and that\u2019s N.B.A. basketball,\u201d he added. \u201cI think what Nick and I are hoping is that, as we roll this out, others will see it in a similar way, and it will happen organically.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are already plans to keep the exchange going between Britell, Nas and the N.B.A. Silver said he had learned enough about marketing over the years to know it might take a long time for fans to adopt the music. \u201cThe greatest compliment,\u201d he said, \u201cis to become someone\u2019s ringtone.\u201d<\/p>\n

In time, there could be a whole library of music by Britell for the league\u2019s use. \u201cWe\u2019re taking our time with it,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an idea I\u2019ve had literally from childhood, essentially. And I\u2019m just sort of pinching myself, that we\u2019re actually doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Adam Silver was a child, his father received a holiday gift from NBC: a set of chimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99205,4567,99203,2538,605,11815,9,11,10,99204,7956],"class_list":["post-254666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-adam-1962","tag-basketball","tag-britell","tag-music","tag-nas","tag-national-basketball-assn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nicholas-1980","tag-silver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}