NBA players attempting to make a second career out of music aren't exactly anything new. It's been tried before--repeatedly--and often to catastrophic results. Consider San Antonio Spurs' 2009 second round draft pick DeJuan Blair's appearance on the P.O.P. (Chicken and Young Meez) track, "2 Hard Livin." Or Big Diesel himself, Shaq Daddy when he tried to launch a hip hop career that was only slightly less embarrassing than his acting role reprising the well-meaning genie in Shazam. Or--God forbid--Ron Artest, with his track "Champions," which was almost bad enough to make Kobe start throwing games.
Thankfully, it doesn't seem Carlos Arroyo intends to join the ranks of NBA's failed recording artists. Maybe it's because the recently resigned point guard gets a free pass for playing on the baddest, most mega-hyped team the NBA's ever seen. More likely, it's because the Puerto Rican FIU-grad actually had some talent going into his foray off the court. Who the hell knows, maybe Puerto Ricans are just naturals for singing over that dembo beat. No telling yet whether or not we'll be seeing with Dwayne Wade, LeBron James,
Chris Bosh and company entering to their teammate's tune at some point this season, while they're shallacking the competition.
But whatever the case, Arroyo makes a a very respectable, radio-friendly go of it with "Se Van Conmigo", laying catchy, auto-tune laden vocals over a fusion of classic reggaeton rhythm with the club-ready electronic melodies in the style popularized in recent years by some of the genre's top artists, like Wisin y Yandel, Angel y Khriz and Alexis y Fido. And he even gets big name Yomo out of P.R. to collab with him on the track, which is already available for download on iTunes. Check out the track below.