At one point in time during the mid-2010s, Ohio-born LeVeon Bell was one of the best football players in the world. Earning Pro Bowl honors thrice as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bell earned millions of dollars as a running back. Now, though, in his post-playing career, Bell has transformed into a rapper, eyeing juicy collaborations to elevate through the ranks.
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On Thursday (August 3), Bell visited the No Jumper YouTube show for a two-hour long interview, where he discusses his hip-hop ambitions and old stories from playing in the NFL. Around the 39-minute mark of the conversation, Bell discusses who he has reached out to for collaborations, noting that Jack Harlow rejected him a handful of times.
“Bro, I sent Jack Harlow two songs, and he turned them both down,” he said. “The first one, he’s like, ‘Nah bro, this one ain’t it.’ The second one, he was like, ‘Hey, you close on this one, but it still ain’t it.'”
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Perhaps Harlow has Bell’s best interest at heart, though, which could lead to a more meaningful collaboration once Bell reaches a level that Harlow approves of. However, earlier this summer, Bell sent out tweets that suggested other mainstream rappers aren’t nearly as picky as Harlow. Singling out Tennessee rapper Moneybagg Yo and North Carolina artist Stunna 4 Vegas, Bell said he didn’t even use the low-effort verses they sent him.
“Moneybagg & Stunna 4 Vegas, I paid both for… decided not to drop these tracks with these guys because honestly, I didn’t like their verses,” he said. “I feel like they just went in the booth and recorded something as fast as they could to get a quick couple bands… Koudos, y’all got it.”
Adding onto this, he followed up with another tweet where he laid out the few superstars he would accept that amount of effort from.
“For me personally, unless (you’re) Drake, SZA, or Rihanna, you gotta at least TRY or I’m not about to just drop the song just because your name is attached to it… straight up,” he wrote. “So that’s why I never dropped the tracks with Moneybagg or Stunna4vegas & most likely never will.”
As of now, Bell has released one full-length project in the form of Life’s a Gamble (2019). He has 31,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and his 2019 single “G Code” with Lil Durk nearly has 2 million streams on the platform.
Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for iHeartRadio
