It’s normal for Bobbito Garcia to be bouncing a basketball on an outdoor court somewhere in New York City. He’s as passionate about the sport as he is about hip-hop — and that speaks volumes. As one-half of The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show, the radio host rose to prominence in the ’90s breaking a number of hip-hop’s future legends, first on Columbia University’s student WKCR-FM, and later on NY’s WQHT-FM.
Once a week, from 1 to 5 a.m., Stretch and Bobbito would transmit uncensored early Eminem, JAY-Z, Wu-Tang Clan, Fugees, and The Notorious B.I.G. to rabid listeners. Stretch and Bobbito became radio legends, later recalling their impact on hip-hop culture in a self-produced 2019 documentary Stretch & Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives.
Garcia’s fundamental love of basketball is revealed in Bobbito’s Book of B-Ball Bong Bong!: A Memoir of Sports, Style, and Soul, a surprisingly personal and at times painfully honest dive into who Garcia is and where he came from, and hip-hop’s golden era.
“The common thread of the book is basketball, but you read about Eminem, or a beatboxer that no one’s heard of who was popular in the Bronx but never put on any records,” he explains. “I wanted to include those types of stories to put the spotlight on these unknown ballplayers and artists, who were part of the fabric of this interconnected community that wound up becoming a global phenomenon.”
Garcia wrote the entire 216-page book in seven months. He weaves in anecdotes on racism, abuse, poverty, addiction, suicide, and other societal plagues.
“My father was highly responsible for my love for basketball — but not solely,” he explains. “I grew up in New York, where courts are unavoidable. Everybody played ball, but I didn’t want to be like everybody else. I had to figure out how to become a unique personality within this space.”
