The Up And Up A video that exuberantly celebrates hip-hop hoops soars to the top of the best-seller list

We counted 189 dunks in Ball Above All, the best-selling video
from the basketball website hoopsTV.com. That works out to one
dunk every 11.1 seconds. We watched in awe as gravity-immune
players performed one-handed dunks, two-handed dunks, windmill
dunks, alley-oop dunks, tip dunks and between-the-leg dunks. We
even witnessed a launched-from-the-free-throw-line slam by
Hargrave Military Academy (Chatham, Va.) phenom James White.

Like its stars (almost all of them unidentified high school or
strictly playground ballers), the 35-minute video has soared,
recently spending two weeks at No. 1 on the Amazon.com
best-seller list. Why not? Ball Above All is unadulterated,
unabashed hip-hop hoops, a rap video accompanied by the most
ethereal aerial choreography this side of Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon.

Between dazzling dunks and ball handling legerdemain that would
render Cousy woozy, comedian Sinbad appears in a Harlem
barbershop musing on a variety of basketball topics. Here's
Sinbad on crossover dribblers who attempt to cross over to rap:
"Kobe, Kobe, you got game. No more albums! No more!" Make no
mistake, though. While the Lakers All-Star guard is mentioned and
Rockets guard Steve Francis is shown in the film playing for a
summer league team, Ball Above All is straight-up street. If you
already wondered whether you suffer from white man's disease,
Ball Above All will inspire only more sole searching.

--J.W.

B/W PHOTO: JOHN HUET