Quavo Coaches NBA Star Trae Young In The Studio, Adds Ad Libs To New Song

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Todd Kirkland / Stringer via Getty Images

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Quavo and Trae Young at the Atlanta Hawks vs. Los Angeles Lakers game on December 6, 2024

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Key Takeaways:

The crossover between music and sports continues as Quavo and Trae Young team up for “Switching Stages.”
Young stepped into the studio to record ad libs with Quavo coaching him through the process.
The session ended with Quavo hinting at adding another Atlanta rapper to the track, possibly 2 Chainz.

Rappers want to be ballplayers and ballplayers want to be rappers, or at least friends. That dynamic is in effect in a new video series kicked off by NBA star Trae Young and Quavo.

The Atlanta Hawks guard and Migos rapper linked up for “Switching Stages” from Billboard and The Players’ Tribune. As the title suggests, the show features the pair interacting in their natural elements. The first episode starts with Young and Quavo playing a game of HORSE on the basketball court before hitting the recording studio. There, Quavo guided the All-Star point guard through creating a song — well, its ad libs.

“Want me to be a part of it?” Ice Trae asked, and his rapping homie was totally with it.

“Oh yeah, I need you on some ad libs or something,” Quavo said. “Whatever you want to do. If you want to pop off the intro, that’ll be hard. You talk some s**t on the intro.”

There’s a big difference from shooting a basketball and stepping in a record booth. Trae was clearly aware of this when he said, “I don’t want to mess it up.”

But Quavo had confidence he could do it. “Nah, you ain’t gonna mess it up. You ain’t going to do nothing but add some more sauce to it,” he said. “I got to have Ice [Trae] on it … We got a good beat, we got a great engineer. Only thing I gotta do is just sit in and just let the words work. Whatever tools and whatever tips you need from me, go ahead and ask me now, because I need you with all the s**t so you can go in there and go crazy.”

The interaction is hilarious as Quavo takes on the role of engineer and actually coaches Young through the process. At one point the athlete asked about the theme and Quavo told him, “We just here to talk about what we [are] doing. We flexing, we boasting, we scoring 50 points, we having 20 assists, know what I’m saying?”

As Young got more comfortable in the booth, it was clear he understood the assignment as Huncho bopped along to his vocals. Quavo even expressed his intent to get another Atlanta rapper, like a 2Chainz, to hop on the song. Sounds like the mission was accomplished.