In 1989, two men named Kool Keith and Ced-Gee created one of the greatest basketball related hip-hop songs in the history of music. This song, which, for lack of a better title, is referred to as "NBA Allstars" by the Ultramagnetic MCs, accompanied the announcement of the lineups at the 1989 NBA All Star Game. As each player and coach stepped onto the court, they were greeted by a lovingly crafted and passionately delivered verse about themselves. These lyrical introductions not only informed the audience about the superlative skills possessed by the All Stars present, but forever memorialized a vital and wonderfully free epoch that indelibly linked worlds of professional basketball and hip hop culture. The nearly ten minute long song was eventually released on the Smack My Bitch Up LP, and, while Kool Keith went on to some sort of fame as Dr. Octagon and the Ultramagnetic MCs have come to be remembered as the groundbreaking musicians they are, the 1989 All Star jam has largely been forgotten outside of all but the most diehard NBA circles.

In 2006, three college roommates loosely grouped around the name "The Old People" decided that it had been too long since anyone had created hip-hop music about basketball that spoke about the game and its players in the transparently admiring and straightforwardly explanatory manner exhibited by the Ultramagnetics in their 1989 opus. They wrote and recorded a song following the Ultramagnetics' format, delivering a verse about each player and coach named to the 2006 All Star Team. This was largely a lark, undertaken as something of a private devotion, but they none-the-less repeated the feat again in 2007, adding a new performer in the process, over a weekend reunited in a Brooklyn, New York apartment. Though the 2007 version was not completed until long after the All Star weekend had become nothing but a memory, and the Old People were separated by a few rivers and mountains, a transcontinental 2008 version also eventually emerged through the power of internet technology.

Nobody heard these private amusements, tiny drops in the enormous cauldron of pop-sports commentary, and that was fine with everyone involved. Not until members of the Old People began to read Free Darko on a regular basis did they become convinced that anyone would want to hear these things. They created a 2009 installment and this webpage for you.

The Old People - Beau Alessi, Joe Fontana, Brian Richardson and Doug Schrashun - invite you to enjoy the fruits of their labors below.