Back in the mid-aughts, hip-hop mixtape culture was driven by MCs aiming to one-up each other by freestyling (or “freestyling”) on other people’s beats. Lil Wayne was the king of this particular conceit, and his effortless genius inspired seemingly every professional basketball player of note to drop some bars over a hit rap instrumental. Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest aka Metta World Peace — they all delivered less than respectable attempts at lyricism. Now, into the grand tradition of NBA stars freestyling on famous rap beats bounds LeBron James. As TMZ reports, Bron Bron hit the studio last summer with Akron buddy Sian Cotton to freestyle over Jay Z and Rick Ross’ great “Fuckwithmeyouknowigotit. The results are as monotone and unintentionally funny as you’d hope — unless the 2 Chainz-biting “2 rings!” ad-lib is supposed to be funny, in which case James should at least get credit for laughing at himself along with the rest of us. Listen below via CoS.

James should probably stick to hoops and leave the rapping to his buddies in Fly Union.

[Photo by Johnny Nunez/Getty Images.]