MEMPHIS, TN –
Lil Baby scored Ja Morant’s autographed game-worn jersey after a recent Memphis Grizzlies game, and recited some of Ja’s favorite NBA YoungBoy lyrics in the process.
The 4PF boss attended the Grizzlies vs. Hawks contest in Atlanta on Sunday night (March 26) and caught up with Morant post-game, where he was gifted the superstar’s blue jersey right off his back. Ja made sure to pen a personalized message to Lil Baby while signing the garment.
“Love Brudda!!!” Morant wrote on the back of his jersey next to his signature, while Baby hollered in his Gucci hoodie: “Parade inside my city, yeah!,” referencing YoungBoy’s opening lyrics from 2022’s “Fresh Prince of Utah.”
Morant finished with a team-high 27 points in the 123-119 victory.
The 23-year-old has made a habit of quoting NBA YoungBoy’s “Fresh Prince of Utah” and the Grizzlies have somewhat turned the lyrics into their own catchphrase.
The NBA star crashed teammate Santi Aldama’s postgame interview following the team’s win over the Dallas Mavericks last week and recited the line from YoungBoy’s Realer 2 track.
“It’s a parade inside my city, yeah!” Morant shouted while Aldama joined him in repeating the bars.
However, UNDISPUTED host Skip Bayless has taken issue with Morant quoting the embattled Baton Rouge rapper.
“If I just take quoting a rap lyric in a vacuum, it’s like so not a big deal that it’s laughable that we’re even discussing it,” Bayless said to co-host Shannon Sharpe. “But we can’t, when it comes to Ja, take it completely out of the context of what he just went through. So, I’ll just say this: it was not a good sign that he quoted that rap lyric.
“Ja jumps right in the middle of it because he can’t restrain himself. And he quotes a rap lyric, ‘It’s a parade inside my city, yeah!’ And it’s just straight jubilation … The problem is that line comes from a song that’s just rife with gun violence, well a lot of rap lyrics have [gun violence].”
Skip continued: “But then, said rapper, if you go back and look at his recent past, he’s been in jail several times for robbery and attempted murder and all kinds of assault charges, so he fits the part of the song, he’s actually playing the role of the song.
“It’s not the best look to quote that rap lyric just as you’re coming back from dangling a gun. In a vacuum, it’s the smallest deal. In context, it’s a reasonably big deal, to me.”
Ja Morant was suspended by the Grizzlies for eight games after flashing a firearm on Instagram Live at a Colorado strip club earlier in March. In his time away from the organization, Morant briefly checked into a Florida counseling program.
He made his return to game action on March 23 against the Houston Rockets as the Grizzlies continue their quest for an NBA championship. They currently hold the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference with just eight games left in the regular season.
