Baron Davis
speaker
446 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 1 Jan
Baron Davis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 1.
Appearances
how it is that you grew up in los angeles and what los angeles means to you because it seems to have the same pull on you that miami has for me yeah man i think uh you know when you grow up uh in a city like miami or l.a especially growing up in l.a um as i was saying this last night as a kid by the time i hit 10 years old i had been to like 13 14 funerals
were kids, not adults, you know what I mean? These were kids, kids getting shot, kids dying, you know what I mean? And so I seen so much death, I seen so much drugs, I seen so much gang violence, I seen so much everything, everything you could imagine. You know what I mean? By 10 years old, right? Where I lived was like, it was,
If you paid attention, you're in the worst fucking place in the, can I cuss? You're in the worst, I was in the worst place that you can be. And there were epicenters in LA in the hood where it's like, hey, if you live in this hood or if you live in this, you know, on this street, like you're pretty much never, like you're never gonna make it.
let alone seeing down the block, seeing around the corner, like, you know, welfare, you know what I mean? In and out of crack houses, in and out of we don't know where the fuck we at. You hang out at the park, you know, at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. And then my grandparents just kind of like flipped the switch and gave me stability, gave me and my sister stability. So from that moment,
I could do nothing but as a eight, 10-year-old kid appreciate The fact that I can go to bed and wake up and I can do that every day, you know what I mean? And not have to worry about, is the house being raided? Like, where the fuck are we going tonight? You know what I mean? Like, damn, it's just me and my little sister here. What happened to the lights?
So, you know, the people who know me, they know, like, even my AAU, like, I was always the kid on the AAU team that everybody felt sorry for. You know what I mean? Because I didn't have parents. And like my grandparents, they was old and they went into sports. But I was like one of the only kids who like literally didn't have parents there. You know what I mean?
And if any of my teammates saw my parents, it would be probably the most embarrassing shit on the planet. You know what I mean? And so that's just kind of like. how I live, you know, I live with this creativity, you know, basketball and this mask and so it's like, I can flip this shit. I can take the crack head and put him on the court and now like, oh damn, he used to hoop.
oh you hooped in high school, you know what I mean? And so it was more so the negativity, the guns, the drugs. I used to dribble between my legs going into the school, and I had to dribble all the way to the court if I messed up, I had to go all the way back to my house, which was across the street. but also thinking about, all right, I better hurry up and get here before it's a drive-by.
I better hurry up and get here before somebody come, you know, gangs come or some problems. And so I grew up with this anxiety, with this PTSD, and church, my grandparents, basketball. Everything else, I had to turn things into comedy. I had to relate things to movies and TV.
I didn't know LA. I only knew... my neighborhood going to church it was only where we went my neighborhood on sundays we go to church it was there was no activities until basketball came and i like then i finally got a chance to play football in englewood so it was like okay my house englewood now i know people in englewood and so it was very um gated growing up la was gated like you i
And you're outside the gates. You're not allowed in the gates. We're in the epicenter of like, we're inside the gate. You know what I mean? It's like if there was a wall when I was growing up that could have been built so people wouldn't have to see a certain part of L.A. They would have built that shit in South Central. You know what I mean? And that's what it was.
I always say it's invisible walls because, you know, here I am on Manchester and San Pedro. You got Maine, you got Broadway, those two different gangs. San Pedro's different, Avalon, next street different. So you like, you know, city blocks, that's like those belong to someone else. So there's no walking to McDonald's even though it's four blocks away. There's no walking to the grocery store.
I mean, you can, but everything is like a chance. It's like you're literally taking a chance. It's not the way kids should be living. It's not the way kids should be thinking. No, not at all. I always say, can you imagine if I could walk From Manchester and San Pedro to the beach. It's not that far or ride a bike, it ain't happening. I can't even go to the bus stop.
And so that's how I got to Crossroads because my grandmother was just like, she needed me to go somewhere else. Well, Crossroads is a private school in Santa Monica, right? Crossroads is a private school in Santa Monica. My AAU basketball coach worked for K-Swiss. He was the marketing director at K-Swiss. They sponsored like four high school teams and Tony Smith.
Remember Tony Smith played for the Lakers. And Crossroads was one of the teams. There was a point guard at Crossroads named Trayvon Dugar. He was like 5'5", 5'6". And my AAU coach was like, damn, that could be Barron. He's not gonna grow past 5'5". He would be good around, he could actually assimilate to white people. You know what I mean?
Because you gotta think, only white people we know is the people we play against in AAU basketball. And so the high school coach was from my neighborhood. And my grandmother wanted me to go somewhere where I got out the neighborhood because one of my friends got killed on the bus stop. at like seven, eight o'clock in the morning going to school.
And so that was the bus, that's like the bus stop I have to take. You know what I mean? Like I can't walk to the next bus stop.
That was it. She was like, man, if he can't walk around the corner, go sit on the bus stop, and that's the most dangerous part of the day. The bus stop is the most dangerous part of the day when you're going from elementary to middle school.
No, she don't drive. She don't drive. My grandfather drove. And so when I went to Crossroads, my grandfather would drive me from Manchester and San Pedro to Manchester and Crenshaw, which is like a bus ride, so I wouldn't have to be on the bus. My AAU coach would pick me up and take me to Crossroads, then drive all the way to Burbank. all the way back around the city.
And so I always say I was blessed. That's why I'm so positive. It's hard to believe how positive you are all the time. It's crazy. It's also like, I'm not sure I deserve all this shit. You know what I'm saying? Like, but I know like I know that there is a greater calling, a higher purpose.
Showing 221–240 of 446 · page 12 of 23
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