Kobe Discusses His New Obsession, What Does Kendrick Outselling Drake Mean?, Triple-Doubles Are Bad For Basketball, And More

Because There's A Lot of Internet Out There No Images? [Click here]( [Complex]( [Kobe Bryant Discusses His New Obsession After Basketball: The Art of Storytelling]( [Kobe Bryant Discusses His New Obsession After Basketball: The Art of Storytelling]( ["The biggest problem athletes have is not being able to find what it is that they love to do.](" [With the launch of “Obsession Is Natural,” the first video of his BodyArmor sports drink campaign—a spot he wrote, creative-directed and narrated—we talked to Bryant about his new job and passion, one that’s already made him not miss the old one.]( [READ FULL STORY]( [Does Kendrick Outselling Drake, You Know, *Mean* Anything?]( [Does Kendrick Outselling Drake, You Know, *Mean* Anything? ]( ["Maybe the loss gets under Drake’s skin enough that he uses Kendrick’s name in a song."]( [There’s a question people keep asking about Damn: What's it mean for hip-hop that Kendrick Lamar outsold Drake, with 600,000 units to More Life’s 505,000? Could it signal a sea change for the genre? Is rap moving away from Auto-Tune melodies? Have we witnessed the birth and simultaneous death of the playlist format? Is non-religious rap doomed? Must rap have an explicit politics to attract young people? The answer is, no.]( [Read Full Story]( [Relax, Old Heads: Hip-Hop Culture Isn't Being Ruined]( [Relax, Old Heads: Hip-Hop Culture Isn't Being Ruined ]( ["Great rappers destroy rap. The greatest rebuild the genre and, by extension, the culture into their own image."]( [On a Monday morning, modern-day provocateur, Complex contributor, and eternally disgruntled (retired) rapper Joe Budden yelled the quote that would launch us back into one of the most tired and regurgitated debates of all time: “[Lil Yachty is] someone who I think is ruining the culture. Someone who should not be accepted in this culture.” The statement reeks of dusty elitism and industrial glue on a new pair of Timbs. This argument isn’t new, it transcends age, and has been plaguing hip-hop for 30-plus years.]( [READ FULL STORY]( [Tennis Continues to Fail Serena Williams When It Comes To Racism]( [Tennis Continues to Fail Serena Williams When It Comes To Racism ]( ["This could have been 'A Timeline of All the Racist Dickheads Serena Williams Has Had to Stand Up To Over the Years."]( [The No. 1 tennis player in the world made her professional debut at age 14. It is impossible to quantify her impact on the game or to neatly sum up her accomplishments since then, but they include winning 23 grand slam titles, four Olympic gold medals, the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year award (three times), and being named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated. Uproar ensued over this last honor, bestowed upon Williams in 2015, because people felt the award should have actually gone to American Pharaoh—a racehorse. That was just one of many dehumanizing slights Williams has endured throughout her 21-year career.]( [READ FULL STORY]( [6 Powerful Documentaries You Need To See To Understand The Importance of the L.A. Riots]( 6 Powerful Documentaries You Need To See To Understand The Importance of the L.A. Riots ["The uprising in L.A., it’s just the only way you can get white people to hear what black people got to say."]( [It is vital to remember that none of this happened in a vacuum. The rage we can now comfortable witness from our screens is certainly powerful, but without the proper background, we may forget that the lootings, fires, and beatings were desperate responses to a long line of systemic racism. We must understand history in order to not repeat it, right? So sit down and watch these six documentaries to truly understand the environment that incited those riots 25 years ago.]( [Read Full Story]( [Triple-Doubles Are Bad For Basketball]( [Triple-Doubles Are Bad For Basketball]( ["The moment we elevate a statistical total—no matter how improbable—above the result of the actual game, the game itself becomes debased."]( [The triple-double has never guaranteed a win or a championship. Yet, the NBA world's fetishization of stats—not to be confused with the catch-all term old heads deride: analytics—has elevated the triple-double to a monolith of all-around excellence. Because of this, Russell Westbrook's breaking of Oscar Robertson's 60-year-old record for triple-doubles in a single campaign and his season-long average of 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds, and 10.4 assists was the storyline of the regular season. But the veneration of the triple-double across the NBA landscape hurts the game in the long run, and it might even exclude #WhyNot Russ from MVP.]( [Read Full Story]( [Red Panda, The NBA’s Legendary Acrobatic Halftime Act, Has No Plans To Hang Up Her Unicycle]( [Red Panda, The NBA’s Legendary Acrobatic Halftime Act, Has No Plans To Hang Up Her Unicycle ]( ["Whenever halftime comes and Red Panda's announced or we all see her come out of the tunnel, it’s like a rock star has come into our presence."]( [Rong Niu was born in China’s Shanxi province. A fourth-generation acrobat, she learned her trade from her father, practicing six to seven hours a day, six days a week, and came to the United States to perform at the Epcot Center at Disney World. She stuck around after that and wound up becoming a staple of NBA halftime shows with her theatrics. If you’ve been to a few games, chances are you’ve seen her balancing with one leg on a ridiculously tall unicycle while flipping bowls with her other foot to the top of her head. The name basketball fans would know her by is, of course, Red Panda.]( [Read Full Story]( [How Samuel Ross Went From Making Knock-Off Nikes to Being One of London’s Most In-Demand Designers]( [How Samuel Ross Went From Making Knock-Off Nikes to Being One of London’s Most In-Demand Designers ]( ["My main focus is just making sure the product reflects the amount of energy that’s put into it in terms of quality."]( [Since founding A-Cold-Wall in 2015, Ross has been busy tearing apart widely accepted notions of how luxury clothing should look and stitching it back together until it resembles something both futuristic and old-school. You can wear A-Cold-Wall while searching for a power source in the dystopian future or to take a selfie in the dystopian present. If the effect is structural, that’s not by accident; it’s a key element to the way in which the label reflects its founder.]( [Read Full Story]( Only want to receive Rare Reads moving forward (and remove yourself from Complex Daily)? [Click here](. © 2017 Complex Media Inc. All rights reserved. 1271 Avenue of the Americas, 35th Fl. New York, NY 10020 [Unsubscribe](