David Stern can soon expect a package from basketball bad-boy Ron Artest. But before the NBA commissioner calls the bomb squad, he may be pleased to find out that it’s merely a peace offering from the Sacramento Kings swingman, the player he suspended on eight different occasions.

Artest plans to send Stern a personally signed copy of his new rap album, “My World.”

Stern may learn a few things from Artest’s first foray into rap. When he gets to the second track, “Haterz,” the commissioner will hear his name cited in one of Artest’s rhymes: “David Stern, damn David Stern, I gotta teach you ’bout the ghetto, some things you should learn.”

“There are so many people in the NBA that are from the ghetto and David Stern needs to learn a little more about these types of people that are in his league,” Artest says on the line from Sacramento. “He ain’t understand how to deal with the people that are in the NBA and he comes down hard on people at times.”

Although it’s unlikely any of the songs from “My World” will end up on Stern’s iPod, Artest may actually have Stern’s blessing. Or at least, Stern didn’t do anything to stop Artest’s album from being released on Oct. 31 like he did with Allen Iverson’s album, which the Philadelphia 76ers star tried to unleash in 2000. Stern successfully halted the album’s release when he learned of its alleged pro-violence and anti-gay lyrics.

Artest doesn’t even have much cursing on his album, which he released through his own label, Tru Warier Records.

“I understand what he did with Iverson. I know he’s capable of blocking it. It means I have to censor some of my lyrics,” Artest says.

But Artest isn’t exactly turning soft just so he could get the NBA’s blessing – or rather, avoid any reprimand from the league. Artest realizes the prominence of “street cred” – more or less audience approval – in the hip-hop game. When Kobe Bryant was losing endorsement deals while under investigation for sexually assaulting a young woman in Colorado, analysts suggested the only positive to come from the incident would be the addition of “street cred” to his squeaky-clean image.

“It’s important that I have street cred because of the type of music that I’m doing and the type of people that are attracted to me,” says the 27-year-old from New York’s Queensbridge Projects. “Right now my street cred is that I’m a real dude, not a thug, just a real dude.”

If anyone in the league has that necessary credibility, it’s Artest. Before even making his NBA debut with Chicago in 1999, he was fined $5,000 for missing a meeting during rookie orientation. In 2002, he called the police and said his girlfriend (now his wife) hit him, a few months after she called the police and said he grabbed her around the neck. He smashed video equipment after a loss to the Knicks in 2003, wore multiple brands of shoes during the 2004 All-Star game in hopes of landing an endorsement, and applied for a part-time job at Circuit City as a rookie to get an employee discount.

And of course, he has the “Malice in the Palace,” which may ultimately be the pinnacle in his credence.

Then a member of the Indiana Pacers, Artest missed 73 games plus the playoffs, the biggest non-drug related suspension in league history, when he reacted to getting hit with a cup of beer by getting physical with fans on and off the court in the brawl during a Pacers-Pistons game in 2004.

That incident, which drew international attention, may have actually benefited Artest – if not Artest the basketball player (he forfeited nearly $5-million of his salary) then Artest the musician.

“This album was born at that time,” says Artest, who wrote and recorded several of the 20 tracks during his forced-absence from the court.

Where Artest differs from other rappers is obvious. He’s entering the music industry with millions of dollars already in the bank. His goal with the album, he explains, isn’t to make as much money as possible and sell millions of copies, but rather to prolong his rap career.

“I want people to realize I can make music and I can make a song.”

Those “people,” in particular, are executives from the four major record labels, the same executives who passed on giving Artest a record deal, forcing him to create his own label in order to release the album.

“I have to prove myself,” he says. “I have a lot of confidence in myself.”

He has so much confidence that he already turned down a million-dollar deal. “I think I’ll have bigger deals in the future. I think after this album there are going to be a lot of offers out there.”

Artest is lucky that he doesn’t care about record sales, because according to Soundscan – the system that tracks record sales in the U.S. – the album sold only 343 copies in its opening week. That’s 6,142 fewer than the ex-Mr. Britney Spears, Kevin Federline, sold that week, also the week of release for his debut rap album.

To be fair to Artest, like he says, he’s no ordinary rap artist, in that when Federline released his album, he was able to appear on countless television shows, do a multitude of radio interviews and most importantly, tour across North America to properly promote. Artest can’t do that because of his basketball obligations.

And that’s something Artest didn’t understand while a member of the Pacers. Artest had spent much of the summer of 2004 touring with Allure, a female R&B group he signed to his label, helping them promote as much as possible.

It wore him out, physically and mentally he says, so he asked Pacers coach Rick Carlisle for a month off from basketball. Carlisle, of course, said no and benched him for two games, just over a week before the brawl.

“We had such a good team that year that I wanted to take some time off to rest because I was doing so much music that summer and I didn’t really know how to balance it. Now I’ve found a way how to balance music and basketball.”

The balance he discovered is simple: basketball is first. Always.

“There are a lot of things I could have done like touring in other states but I had to pass. I understand that without basketball, none of this would have been possible and I respect that. I always realized that but I always tried to keep it real to myself and sometimes I keep it too real and sometimes that hurt me. You can’t be hardcore every day all day.”

He proved his priorities before the start of the regular season when Joe and Gavin Maloof, owners of the Kings, offered to play some of Artest’s songs at games.

“I told them I didn’t want them to because [the team has] to have a good record, like 40-10, and then they can start playing my music. I want to make sure that our basketball season is going in a really good direction before they start playing my music.”

As for Stern, he hasn’t set up a meeting yet with Artest to get his ghetto education lesson, but Artest recently gave the league an idea he had.

Artest suggested that two NBA teams, like the Lakers and Kings, play a regular season game in another team’s arena, like in New York’s Madison Square Garden. The NBA’s response?

“They never got back to me.”






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