As part of Steph Curry’s all-out promotional blitz for his new documentary, the Warriors legend released a music video with rapper Tobe Nwigwe on Wednesday.
The music video for “Lil Fish, Big Pond” starts with rap lyrics playing while a man in a boat hangs his head. A long zoom-in eventually reveals the man in the bucket hat is Curry, who starts mouthing lyrics about his career. “Daddy taught me how to flick my wrist, I’m my father’s son. … They should put the basket in the casket after I am done,” some representative lyrics go.
Curry is clearly lip-syncing, a common practice in music videos. But the video is listed as “Tobe Nwigwe ft. Stephen Curry,” and a few breathless headlines credited Curry with the technically dexterous rapping that appears in the song. “Watch Steph amazingly drop bars in viral new rap song,” one headline from NBC Sports Bay Area read. “Warriors’ Stephen Curry Raps in Tobe Nwigwe’s ‘Lil’ Fish, Big Pond’ Music Video,” read another from Bleacher Report.
There’s just one problem: That is very obviously not Curry’s voice in the song. Curry is certainly in the video, but he is absolutely not rapping in it. It’s clearly Nwigwe’s voice. A Warriors spokesperson confirmed to SFGATE that Curry is just lip-syncing and that is not his voice. Curry is not listed on the song on streaming services like Spotify. (For reference, this is what it sounded like when Curry actually rapped in college.)
Some music publications were more skeptical. Uproxx wrote in a headline that Curry “appears to try his hand at rapping,” although the actual story points out that “while Curry proves pretty adept at lip-syncing, it’s pretty clear that it’s Tobe doing most of the actual rapping in the video.” The Fader bluntly pointed out that “it’s Nwigwe rapping from Curry’s perspective (before trickily taking a verse in his regular rap persona), but Curry’s lip-syncing work alone is enough to earn a very slight nod from the heads.”
The lyrics, written by Nwigwe, are funnier, edgier and more arrogant than Curry’s usual public persona. “Think I’m pistol packin how that ratchet on me like a gun,” the Curry character raps, along with a joke about Clayton Bigsby, the Black white supremacist from a 2003 Chappelle’s Show sketch. An Athletic story about the making of the music video says that Curry “spouted” the lyrics, although it later says he lip-synced for the video and “is still not underrated as an MC.” Curry will have to settle for god-tier basketball player and near-elite golfer but merely karaoke-level rapper.
