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DURHAM Former North Carolina point guard Quentin Thomas used to dream about seeing his virtual image programmed into the popular EA Sports video game, “NBA Live.” But when he slips the newest edition into his Xbox 360 this October, he'll hear something as idyllic: his voice rapping the game's introduction.
“I never thought it would happen,” Thomas said recently, shaking his signature braids while taking a break from recording hip-hop tracks at N.C. Central. “But it does seem kind of fitting, doesn't it?”
If not for basketball, the 2008 North Carolina graduate wouldn't be in this position: working with respected producer 9th Wonder on the release of his first mix tape; hoping the collection of songs, along with the EA Sports single, “Spit,” creates enough buzz for an album.
As a basketball player, Thomas goes by the nickname “Q,” and he still hopes to return to the court to play overseas this fall. But after having microfracture surgery and nine months of rehab on his right knee, the rapper known as “GQ” has found a second vocation.
“He's got something special,” said Wonder, a former member of Durham hip-hop group Little Brother who has worked with artists Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Destiny's Child and Erykah Badu. “He's not a basketball player who can rap, he's an emcee who can play ball.”
For Thomas, though, both have become inextricably intertwined.
He was maybe 10 years old, playing for the 12-and-under Oakland (Calif.) Tar Heels at a Las Vegas AAU tournament, when his older teammates started rapping in the team van. Trying to fit in, Thomas joined in.
“I wasn't good at it, but when I got home – already liking to write – I really started studying music, different artists – rap, gospel, R&B, whatever,” Thomas said. “... At the time, I didn't know that I was trying to perfect the craft that I'd be doing down the road.”
His hobby continued in high school through what he and his friends called “Friday Functions,” where a pal provided a beat on the wall, and Thomas added lyrics.
At North Carolina, where he averaged a modest 2.2 assists and 10.2 minutes primarily as a reserve, his rhymes became popular with teammates, too. They frequently asked him to freestyle in the locker room and on the bus.
At that point, though, Thomas never imagined hip-hop as a career.
Basketball has always been his first love. Writing was a getaway – a way to commemorate the good times, such as when he helped the Tar Heels to a 7-1 record late in his senior season while starter Ty Lawson was injured. It also served as a cathartic distraction when times got tough, like during the foot fractures and sprained ankles and sore knees and surgeries that plagued his four college years.
So perhaps it was fitting that another painful moment led him to Wonder's recording studio.
Thomas, who lives in Chapel Hill, was working out for the Los Angeles Lakers last summer when he felt an ache in his knee. He tried to play through it but knew from experience that something was wrong. He started to wonder whether his pro career was over before it ever started.
“I was like, ‘This again?'” he remembered. “After all the injuries, I was really at the point where I almost didn't want to play anymore.”
That same afternoon, he got a call from Wonder, who had heard of Thomas' rhymes from a friend. Suddenly, the player's oft-repeated adage – “everything happens for a reason” – came into play.
If not for the knee, Thomas might not ever have traveled back East to meet Wonder in Durham.
The producer – a Duke fan who was dubious that a basketball player could really be good behind a microphone – might not ever have been shocked by what he heard from the mild-mannered Tar Heel.
Thomas might not have ever become one of the five artists recording under JAMLA, one of Wonder's two independent labels.
And the point guard might never have regained his desire to play basketball again.
“At the time that his first love, basketball, was taken from him, another joy was given to him,” said Loretta Thomas, Quentin's mother. “It gave him another outlet, so he wouldn't have to focus so much on his injury. It gave him a balance, something to really smile about.”
That quiet grin has been in place while recording roughly five dozen songs about everything from learning from the tribulations of playing basketball (non-fiction) to growing up with an absent father (fiction).
Although some of the language is R-rated, he said he tries to record different raps in a range that both his grandmother and little sister would enjoy.
Wonder, an artist in residence at N.C. Central, said the player's basketball background has served him well because he's coachable.
Thomas understands that practice, feedback and patience are key, Wonder said.
“What makes him good is that when you're an emcee, you've got to tell a story – and you've got to be able to tell it, and put that person that's not you in that place with you,” said Wonder, whose birth name is Patrick Douthit. “You've also got to be able to rhyme. ... But the biggest thing that makes him incredible is the words he writes.”
Thomas' raps will be available later this month on his mix tape: “GQ: Who's Got the Juice Now?”
Several Tar Heels are scheduled to provide their own “drops,” or one-line shout-outs, for the composition, and it will be available online at myspace.com/mynameisGQ, where some of his other tunes can currently be found.
If both create enough buzz, Wonder said, an album will come next.
Even with a budding professional career in the studio, though, Thomas hasn't given up his first goal.
He expects to be cleared later this month by doctors to play again, and he hopes to join an international team by October – about the time his rap with David Banner on NBA Live 10 is scheduled to be in stores.
“... I haven't given up my dream of playing professionally,” Thomas said. “But now, I have two dreams.”
robbi.pickeral@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8944
