There have been countless stories of Michael Jordan's ruthlessness and dominance during games both in the NBA and in the offseason at various courts across the globe. Each one of these tales is unique, though, giving further and further glimpses at Jordan's competitive nature.
One such tale of Jordan's uber competitiveness occurred on the set of the movie Space Jam in 1995.
Wanting to stay in shape for the upcoming season, Jordan had Warner Bros. build him a "tented basketball court," where the Bulls' star had other NBA players like Charles Barkley, Tracy Murray and Steve Smith come to play in a series of daily pickup games. And although Jordan was intense as ever in these games, he apparently took no prisoners while listening to the sweet sounds of neo-soul and R&B singer D'Angelo's first album Brown Sugar on repeat.
From ESPN's J.A. Adande:
Maybe we should credit the singer D'Angelo as well. His first album dropped that summer, and his seductive songs wound up providing the soundtrack to the pickup games on the Warner Bros. lot.
"Michael loved that CD," Murray said.
Therefore, "Everybody hooped to D'Angelo," Murray said. "Driving up the floor ... 'Brown Sugar.'"
Don't think for a second that the neo-soul or even the low stakes of the summer diminished Jordan's ultra-competitive fires.
Brown Sugar is a hell of an album (D'Angelo's second album, Voodoo, is a true classic, though), so it is pretty easy to understand why Jordan listened to it on repeat. D'Angelo's music, however, is very smooth and has elements of slow jazz, so it is an interesting choice to listen to while playing basketball. Brown Sugar is more of "sit back and chill" type of album than a "let's get hype to play ball" type of album.
Yet as he showed throughout his illustrious Hall of Fame career, from angry fan noise to the sweet sounds of D'Angleo, it didn't make any difference to Jordan as he always played at the highest level possible.
