Oakland rapper and longtime Warriors diehard Mistah Fab still remembers standing at the team’s practice facility during a photo shoot debuting the team’s new Nike Statement jerseys featuring “The Town” across the chest.
The jerseys, set to debut Saturday night, are an ode to Oakland, a place the Warriors have called home for 46 years. They also symbolize an effort to further galvanize a community the team will depart in 2019, heading across San Francisco Bay for the $1 billion Chase Center.
Even if the jersey was a bit snug for Fab’s liking (they must’ve given him a “Smedium,” he joked) he still savored the bittersweetness of the moment that day in downtown Oakland.
“I was stoked,” he said. “You have to give the people something to pacify the emotion that they’re leaving, so it was a great marketing ploy to do that. You take the bitter with the sweet, I look at the sweet more side than the bitter so hopefully they can revitalize the city of Oakland.”
This week the Oakland rapper, known for his hit singles “NEW Oakland” and “Ghost Ride It,” stood alongside the baseline of another court, about 12 miles and half a world away at East Oakland’s Youth Uprising community center.
Fab’s presence at the center, along with fellow Oakland rapper Too Short, and former Warrior guard Kelenna Azubuike, were a part of the renovation of the center’s basketball court. Nike, the NBA’s newest uniform outfitter, and the team have collaborated to equip the court with new baskets, along with a new paint job featuring “The Town” insignia at center court.
Following the ceremony, Azuibuke led a clinic of more than 50 kids — many whom are students that utilize the center’s services.
While the makeover, part of the three planned throughout the city, provides help to a community center in one of the poorest areas of the city, it also pushes the team’s bigger message: We may be moving but our presence still remains.
“We’ll never leave The Town,” Azuibuke proclaimed to the contingency of kids, staffers, and residents.
Before the two-word phrase became an olive branch from the team to the East Bay city, it was a phrase used by the locals and popularized by rapper Too Short in songs like “That’s How It Goes Down,” “Blow the Whistle,” and “Survivin’ The Game.”
The rapper, who started his music career in the mid-1980s, gained a buzz by selling cassette tapes out of the trunk of his car in the 69th San Antonio Villas housing project in East Oakland and prided himself on being the messenger for the streets he once inhabited.
“It just started in the street,” Short says. “Whatever streets say, I say it in the song.”
Aside from its musical past, “The Town” provided a rugged antidote to the glitz of San Francisco. While “The City” presents the glamour of the Bay Area, with the famous Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars and the Peace Movement of the late 1960s, Oakland represents the rough soul of the area, from music to sideshows to the Black Panthers.
“Most people are scared to come here,” said Aalim Moore, whose son Aalim II works in the Warriors organization.
“A lot of people are intimidated and fearful of Oakland outside of the Bay Area that never knew Greater Oakland,” said Fab. “Even to this day they don’t know what that represents, they don’t know what that means.”
Oakland also provided a safe haven for the Warriors when the franchise found itself at a crossroads. In 1971, the team, then based in San Francisco, found itself in dire financial straits as the team failed to capture the city’s attention, producing the lowest attendance in the league as they barnstormed through various venues from the Cow Palace to USF’s War Memorial Gymnasium to the Civic Auditorium.
After an arena bond measure failed in San Francisco, then owner Franklin Mieuli began negotiating with the Oakland Arena (now Oracle Arena), as well as city leaders in San Diego, in an effort to split the team’s home games between the two cities. In the process, the team changed from the San Francisco Warriors, to the Golden State moniker we know now.
Despite the move across the bay (the San Diego split didn’t materialize), the Warriors’ on-court threads did little to acknowledge the team’s presence in the East Bay city. The first incarnation of the East Bay uniform featured a player’s number in the middle surrounded by a text saying “Golden State.” Later versions of the jersey featured a plain Warriors text above the number with no mention of their home arena’s location.
Even nights reserved for celebrating the team’s past were reserved strictly for San Francisco, as the organization chose to wear retro jerseys with “The City” moniker etched across the team’s chest during the team’s “Hardwood Classic Nights” for the 2003-04 and 2015-16 season.
In recent years, however, the organization has embraced its longtime home. In 2015, the team opted to hold its championship parade along the banks of Lake Merritt, then followed suit with the latest championship celebration in June.
Aside from observing their accomplishments in the city, the Warriors have also immersed themselves in the community, donating more than 70 courts around the city — even renovating the entire gym at the East Oakland Youth Development Center.
“It’s dope to see that the organization is so deeply rooted inside of the city,” Fab says as watches the kids run through drills with pride.
Across the park on the opposite baseline stands Aalim Moore, proud of the team he’s rooted for his entire life.
“This is a matter of personal pride so I am extremely impressed with the Golden State Warriors and their organization,” he said. “And very thankful.”
