At the point of this writing, it is just over two weeks into 2025, and it appears as though the year’s first hit song has arrived. It is not by Taylor Swift or Drake or any of the usual chart toppers, but by basketball player-turned-rapper LiAngelo Ball or, as he now goes by musically, G3 GELO. For those who did not watch Ballislife and Overtime mixtapes every day during middle school, LiAngelo, or Gelo as he is often referred to, might not be much of a household name. He is the middle of the three Ball brothers and his older and younger brothers are both top picks in the NBA draft.
Gelo was not as successful, with his biggest basketball success being a short stint in the NBA G League. After an injury ended his season in a Mexican professional league, it appeared as though Gelo’s basketball career had come to an end. He also got into hot water for shoplifting according to the New York Times. This was something his father, the eccentric and polarizing Lavar Ball, had predicted back in 2017 when he said that one of his sons was not going to make it to the league, but that presumably Gelo was “going to be taken care of either way.”
At the time, it wasn’t clear what Lavar meant by this, but nearly eight years later, it is all starting to make sense. Gelo was hanging out with internet streamer N3ON when in front of a live broadcast, he provided a teaser of a song he was working on. Within days, the snippet was everywhere, with its refrain “I might swerve, bend that corner woah,” going viral for every reason imaginable. Some were making fun of it, due to its 2000s-style beat and flow. However, it seemed like a majority of people loved it for that exact reason, with the style reminiscent of rappers like Jeezy or Jim Jones, artists that many fans grew up with.
As the seemingly genuine love from fans continued to spread, Gelo officially released the single, titled “Tweaker,” through DSPs and Worldstarhiphop. From there, the growth was exponential. NBA and NFL players were listening to it in the locker rooms, the official NFL Instagram account used the aforementioned line as a caption and people all around the world were making TikToks and other videos to it, allowing the track to reach wider audiences by the day. It was virtually everywhere. In a week where established global stars like Bad Bunny and Lil Baby put out full albums, it was Gelo’s debut single that took the world, and more importantly the internet, by storm.
This did not end in just a little viral success, however. Just about a week after releasing the song, Gelo signed a record deal with Def Jam, with Gelo retaining full ownership of his music and his masters in the agreement. The next day, it was announced that the song had reached #29 on the Billboard Hot 100, including #7 in the rap category, beating out all but one Lil Baby song.
The question now is what is to come from Gelo? For now, at least one more song. A video circulated of Gelo’s older brother Lonzo playing an unreleased Gelo track for his teammates in the locker room, with Lonzo promising a new song just a week after the first had dropped. However, after signing the deal, it seems as though the schedule had to be shifted a little bit, but there is at least something in the vault ready to go. Will it be as massive a hit as the first, or was that just beginners’ luck? In this day and age, anything could happen, but it will be interesting to see just how far Gelo takes this road.