2K Sports and Stones Throw Records Team Up

November in Minneapolis is bone-chilling cold. Honestly, there are few braver things than to weather the elements in a wind-swept city at 0 degrees. Not only that, standing in line to enter a club can be an experience you never forget as you freeze and watch the girls walk around outside in miniskirts. That didn’t stop 2K Sports and Stones Throw Records from throwing a hot bash that celebrated not only their 2K Sports line of basketball games but hip-hop as well.

With the release of well received and scored College Hoops 2k8, the sound track had an independent sound and feel. Part of the success was because of the new found direction of 2K Sports in getting some great inde and popular bands to sign on to their sports titles. Remember when reports were coming in for MLB 2k7 and how cool their sound track was? While the sound department isn’t normally a king maker when it comes to reviews, it does add to the overall experience and a poor track can have gamers hitting the mute button in a second flat. 2K Sports has deftly dealt with that situation by picking some choice songs.

Flash forward to that cold night where 2K and Stones Throw Records are doing a promotional tour together. The mix of gaming and hip-hop is coming together in perfect sync. The club the concert was at was filled to the brim with 2K key chains, demos of NBA 2k8, some good music, and a couple of Xbox 360 setup around the bar to not only sip on your favorite cocktail around but play a game while you’re at it. When the concert started, I even spied a few people still gripping the 360 controllers for dear life. The night was starting to heat up.

The musical performances were good. Peanut Butter Wolf, Madlib, Guilty Simpson, Karriem Riggins, J.Rocc and Percee P headlined the tour and provided all the energy needed to get through a night. As luck would have it, my camera broke a few weeks before the event and that left me without a way to take pictures. The night went on with more acts taking the stage and more people filling the club, the excitement was very electric. I throughly enjoyed the concert and dug the cross promotion of inde music labels and quality video games with some neat take-away demos.