P-Lo Puts Bay Area Rap Center Court for NBA All-Star Weekend

If the Bay Area was an arena, and rap music was the sport, P-Lo — the Filipino American rapper-producer phenom — would certainly qualify as a perennial All-Star.

Since splashing onto the scene over a decade ago as a founding member of HBK Gang, P-Lo has gone on to establish himself as one of the Bay’s most multidimensional talents. He’s already accumulated the kind of stats that will ensure his rightful place in the Hall of Game: production credits on hit singles, performances at arenas and, most recently, a commercial with 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy.

On Feb. 12, P-Lo will once again don his Bay Area uniform: His latest album, For The Soil, is slated to drop the same week that NBA All-Star Weekend arrives in San Francisco. More than ever, he’s locked in and bringing the rest of the Bay along for a victory lap.

“For me to even get to this spot has been a journey. The music industry can be daunting, especially coming from the Bay,” says P-Lo. “Every Bay Area artist is truly rooted in their community. I just want to be able to provide whatever I can. Mentorship, helping other artists navigate this. It’s extremely important to me that other artists and producers and songwriters and creatives in the Bay are doing well.”

A landmark collaboration with San Francisco label Empire and the Golden State Warriors’ Golden State Entertainment, the nine-track project is the first of its kind for the championship-bedecked basketball franchise. Having launched their music and entertainment branch in 2022 (the only such venture in the sports industry), the Warriors recruited P-Lo as their point guard to orchestrate the Bay Area’s distinctive style on wax.

“‘The Soil’ represents the Bay Area,” says Cal-A, a Bay Area music producer who works closely with P-Lo. “There’s a lot of talk about teams leaving Oakland, and the culture and energy of the Bay leaving. Nah, we’re bringing that soil back to Chase. That spirit. And the groundskeeper is P-Lo.”

The album’s namesake and concept was largely derived from another popular Bay Area rapper and lifelong Warriors superfan, E-40, who once declared, “I’m from the soil where rappers be gettin’ they lingo from” on the 2006 hyphy anthem “Tell Me When To Go.” In homage to Uncle Earl, who is featured on the album, P-Lo — and many Baydestrians — have adopted the phrase as a rallying cry. It’s a way of preserving a sense of home. Soil, after all, requires a certain nurturing. And if cared for, it yields a bountiful supply that can feed generations.

It’s not P-Lo’s first time repping the Bay Area through basketball. The former junior college hooper has formally worked with the dynastic Golden State franchise going back to 2018, when he first started performing at half-time shows. He has also served as the team’s cultural ambassador for Filipino Heritage Night on multiple occasions. But For The Soil and P-Lo’s events for NBA All-Star Weekend are taking that collaborative dynamic to the next level — one that no NBA organization has executed in tandem with a rapper before.

“P-Lo is already woven into the Warriors culture as a legitimate, authentic fan,” says David Kelly, a Warriors executive who founded Golden State Entertainment. “We already play his music at games. [E-]40 is already courtside. This is organic.”

The team and Stunna, as P-Lo calls himself, announced the album in November 2024 to much fanfare. In a promotional video, P-Lo (dressed as an arena custodian) rolls a wheelbarrow teeming with soil into an empty Chase Center in San Francisco. “All-Star is just around the corner,” he says, adding that he needs to get to work.

Days later, he and Golden State teased a clip from the album’s first single, “Players Holiday ’25,” which features a roster of Bay Area ballers. Larry June, Kamaiyah, Saweetie, LaRussell, G-Eazy, thủy and YMTK each supply their lyrical game with references to jump shots, the We Believe Warriors, Oracle Arena, Moses Moody and Draymond Green.

The song’s video was filmed at the historic Cameron House court in San Francisco’s Chinatown (which, by the way, has been deemed one of the world’s “Must Hoop” destinations by the International Basketball Federation), and includes an all-time list of Bay Area playmakers who appear in the background — including Clyde Carson, Dregs One and Oopz.

A remake of the iconic 1999 song “Players Holiday” — from Bay Area supergroup The Whole Damn Yey, which featured a powerhouse lineup of Too $hort, Ant Banks, Mac Mall, E-40, and Rappin’ 4-Tay — P-Lo’s version delivers an updated Bay Area vibe with added basketball visuals in anticipation of the popular NBA event.

It’s the first time since 2000 that the NBA will bring its All-Star festivities to the Bay — a region which has undergone seismic economic and social upheaval in the past 25 years. And through it all, P-Lo has kept the Bay’s idiosyncratic culture and sound at the forefront.

“We’re trying to make it so that when people come out here, there’s a sound for the experience,” says Cal-A. “For The Soil is the first of its kind. An NBA pro sports team reaching out to local musicians and local talent to create a soundbite of the region. It’s a representative soundtrack.”

Having worked on the project for the past half-year, P-Lo and his “same squad, same squad, same squad” are more than ready to deliver for All-Star Weekend. Following the release of “Players Holiday ’25,” a gang of additional singles have arrived or are on the way — with tracks featuring an intergenerational cast of the Bay’s biggest playmakers. Appearances include E-40, Too $hort, Goapele, Ovrkast., Rexx Life Raj, ALLBLACK, 1100 Himself, 24KGoldn, Lil Bean and more, making it arguably one of the most regionally stacked albums to come out of the Bay Area in some time.

As part of his album roll out, P-Lo also teamed up with Urban Sprouts to work on a community garden with volunteers earlier this month (literally doing it “for the soil”). He also appeared at Santa Clara University’s basketball gym and spoke to the team. Up next, has a performance scheduled on the San Francisco Bay Ferry on Feb. 8, and he’s partnering up with a Nike-sponsored Kobe Bryant sneaker event in San Francisco’s Chinatown. To be sure, there’s plenty afoot for the savvy baller leading up to All-Star Weekend. He’ll even play in the NBA’s annual celebrity game.

As P-Lo croons in “Lights Out,” the album’s second single, it’s once again the Bay Area’s time to show the basketball world what we’re all about, “not now, but right now.”

“I’m just looking forward for everyone to come to the Bay [for All-Star Weekend] to understand how special and unique we are,” he says. “Whether that’s through the food, through the people, through the community, through the music. With this album, I want everyone to get a grasp of the real Bay.”

P-Lo will perform music from ‘For The Soil’ on the San Francisco Bay Ferry at 4 p.m. on Sat., Feb. 8. RSVP here.

The album will be available on all streaming platforms on Wed., Feb. 12, with an accompanying Nike event in Chinatown that same day. He will close out the week with a performance at Chase Center’s Thrive City (1725 3rd St., San Francisco) on Thurs., Feb. 13.