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On this episode of the Heat Check, we have a very special guest here to break down all things La Lakers. Let's welcome Claire to Lone, musician and writer. One of the best follows on NBA Twitter at Claire Mpls, give or follow. Check out her band Tiny Death on Spotify. She also writes for The Guardian. She's here to tell us whether the Lakers' recent form is going to continue, whether to the fall back to Earth, and whether Anthony
Davis might just be the twenty three MVP. Let's get into this, Nick, So do me a favor and drop that beat. How did you get into music?
Well, some music I've been doing since I was a little kid. I've been writing songs since I was like in kindergarten, and I started playing music professionally in high school. So that is that is, like, you know, been the kind of through line in my life. I always knew that's what I wanted to do from the time I was really young, and and yeah, it just sort of is like I've said this before, but I feel like writing songs is sort of just the way.
I like synthesize the human experience.
Like it's just the way I deal with my feelings and like, you know, deal with existential dread and all of it. So I yeah, I don't really remember a time before I wrote songs.
You know, it's funny you don't know this about me, and I didn't know this about you until I was doing some prep about you. But me and you both were in a.
Hip hop group.
No way, no white girls in hip hop groups.
Everybody needs that, right, That's like there's a real shortage.
That's what everyone is clamoring for.
They're like, you know what, I wish there was more white girls in hip hop groups.
From white real earth of that.
Right. You were in Minneapolis, I was in Portland.
Yeah, those are the hip hop capitals.
Although honestly, there's an amazing hip hop scene in Minneapolis because there's like rhyme sayers and like you know, I mean they are kind of known for it a little bit.
But we got a oh yeah, yeah.
I saw him shopping at a grocery store in Malibu once and I was like, oh, hey, I mean he had like a cart full of junk food.
It was really funny.
So that's really interesting to me because that's not really your genre now, not at all, And I don't even know. And if you don't want to talk about this, we don't have to because it's not really I couldn't really find anything about it on your profile, like so like in the like micro print, right, it was like Claire Daloon in a hip hop group called The Chalice yep, the Chalice with Lizzle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, I mean I absolutely will talk about it, I just like, don't.
I don't know, I feel like it.
First of all, it kind of feels like another lifetime because we stopped being a group in twenty thirteen, so it's like almost ten years ago, and I feel like I've done a lot since then, and I feel like I've honestly been like several people since then in some ways, like I was in my early twenties. It's just like such a different time in my life. But yeah, I mean it was I loved it. It was a really
fun group. I mean obviously, like any band, I'm sure I could tell you, like, there were for sure ups and downs, and like especially in you know, like a group of twenty something women, there's like plenty of dramas.
As I would imagine.
It's pretty obvious, but besides that, it was a blast, Like we had so much fun, and you know, we it was all of our first taste of sort of like any level of six us, Like we had like national management and we went on tour and like that sort of stuff, and none of us had ever done that before. So I have super fond memories, like it was great. I was never super into the music, to
be honest, it wasn't really my vibe. It didn't feel I felt sort of like I was like playing a part or something acting almost because it was very I would say it's kind of similar to like what Lozo's music is now. It's very like bombastic, sort of like like I'm gonna go out in the town with my girls like kind of music, and my music, if you've ever heard what I do now, is like basically the exact opposite of that. It's like very like moody and
contemplative and like just not that at all. And I had a lot of fun kind of like trying on that like role, but it just never really felt like true to me. So it wasn't rewarding in the same way that releasing music is for me now because I didn't really feel like me.
I felt like I was like acting.
Kind of Yeah, that's a really interesting space because you know what what I had to do, Uh, well, what I did. I was with a guy and we were in a group, and like I wasn't dating like guys that were drug dealers, but I.
Was talking about it.
You know, like there's like, you know, we're taking first class trips and like, you know, I'll hold your chain while you're in jail. And I was like sixteen, I was like sixteen year also, I knew it. I was like sixteen seventeen years old right at this point.
But that was the thing.
You're just kind of trying to make music and trying to be popular and trying to be seen, and then yeah, you sort of realize I think as a as an evolution to you as a maybe this is how you feel. Maybe don't evolution as a person, as an artist, as a creative, Like it doesn't. It's not really fun if you're not doing it how you want to do it and how and who you are and what resonates with the things that you actually do.
Yeah, I mean, I think for me at the time, it was a really good lesson because I ended up in that group because I was sort of when I moved back to Minneapolis. Originally it was supposed to be for like six months, it was not supposed to be for a long time, and it ended up being seven years.
And I.
Knew people in the hip hop scene just like through social life, and so I sort of got my foot in the scene, like dip my toe in of music in that scene by just like singing hooks on like rappers songs and stuff like. That's just sort of like
was my calling card. And then I met Lizzo and Lauren who's heard now DJ because we were like three of the only women I would see around at like you know, rap shows and stuff, and we they asked me to sing on one song they were working on, and that one song ended up getting played on the radio locally in like heavy rotation, and so we just kind of like got offered shows to play based off of that, and based off of that, we started writing more songs so that we would have things to play
at the shows. And everything about my career up until that point from like how I ended up in hip hop, so how I ended up in that group, it all felt very like passive in a way. Like I was busting my ass, but I didn't feel like any of it. Was like I had no vision for my career. I
had no vision for the music I was making. I was sort of just like, oh, I guess I'll just do this thing because it just like this is where my path is leading me, and like this is falling in my lap and tininess, which is the music I'm doing now, was sort of my first time ever really being like I want to make really intentional music that sounds exactly like the kind of music I want to
listen to. And I honestly didn't ever even occur to me until I started doing what I do now that I could do that, Like, I really didn't feel empowered in that way, and I kind of just felt like that's how careers go. It's just like opportunities come to you and you mold yourself into something that fits them.
And then you go onto the next thing.
So I think I had to like grow up, you know, and I had to like learn that you can and should be intentional about your career.
How did you get from Okay, I'm making the music that I want to make, but also you grew up in New York, right, yeah, but you became a Laker fan. So how do you get in from music to you know, becoming this sort of an important part of I think if somebody told me that you work for the Ringer, I wouldn't be surprised, right, Like you're kind of a part of the sort of stratosphere of it. How how did that those opportunities come to be and how did your fandom come to be.
It's so weird, honestly that I work in NBA media now, because if you had told me that, even like ten years ago, I would have been like, you're insane, Like I was absolutely first of all, I want to be completely clear about this. The obnoxious artsy kid that's like, what's a sport? Like sports ball? Like I was like that, Like I hate those people. And I was totally that I was such a little dickhead. And I was just on tour with Titus and my drummer was really into basketball,
mind you, way less into it than I am. Now I've far surpassed him in knowledge at this point, but like he had the Playoffs on in the background and in our green room on tour, and I just started watching with him and I got totally obsessed and just my personality type as a crazy person. I guess is that like when I get into something, I get really into it and I like want to know everything about it,
and I get, you know, like super invested. And so I just went from zero to one hundred and just started consuming so much NBA.
And just got like really into it.
And obviously very quickly I surpassed interest in as far as all my friends, Like all my friends were like, shut up, I don't want to hear you talk about basketball. So I kind of just like ended up on Twitter like to just tweet into the void about basketball because I was boring all my.
Like artsy friends to tears.
And that's how I kind of got in the NBA Twitter like community, I guess. And then when I moved to LA in twenty seventeen, a lot of my NBA Twitter friends became like in real life friends because a lot of and live here, and for a long time, I was like the only one of my friends without a podcast and without who wasn't working in media like
I got. So I can't overstate this, Like I got so into basketball that the only people who could like stand to like hang out with me and talk about basketball were people who were professionally working in.
The industry, Like it's just so ridiculous.
But yeah, and then it just sort of like opportunities kind of started coming to me just from like like my Twitter following growing and stuff, and I think also just because all my friends worked in the space and I just I was just genuinely there for a good time. Like I had no agenda, I had no career ambitions. I had a whole other career as a musician that I had been working on my whole It was like my life's work.
So I was like I.
Was definitely not trying to like schmooze people and like like climb any sort of social ladder because I was just like stoked to have friends that were down to talk to me about basketball, honestly, and then it just sort of organically turned into a job, which is still so weird to me and very cool. But I also am still a full time musician too, like I do both.
So but yeah, I feel like I was I was laughing about this with my mom because I'm like, I don't think I could give career advice in the NBA, because I don't think it'd be possible to recreate my path because I think the only reason I even got the opportunities I did was because I had no agenda at all.
And I feel like if I had tried to.
Reverse engineer it and if I was like, oh, I really want a job in this industry, I don't know if if I would have just had like the joy de vive of like what I was doing enough to get any opportunities to do it, you know.
Yeah, and like maybe would be pressing maybe exactly be trying to manipulate in some way, and you know how it is in LA It's like, yeah, there's a desperation that you can smell, and you can smell it when they're they see something from you right exactly less and that they're using that relationship to maybe expand So do you think if you wanted to be in the NBA media space you would have ever ended up in the media space. Yeah.
No, that's the thing is I think it.
I feel like it only happened because I was just doing I think it's a good life lesson in some ways, because I think I just genuinely was like doing getting like very passionate about something, very into it, and like genuinely enjoyed it so much and just developed real meaningful relationships with people that were just based on enjoying their company and having a mutual interest. And then those relationships just like organically ended up turning into like career opportunities.
But I think that you kind of like it's convinced me honestly that the only way to achieve real success in any arena in life is to just like follow your bliss and like spend time doing the things that make you happy. Spend time doing the things that you're
passionate about. Don't worry about like having an agenda or like scheming or plotting or like, oh, I have to talk to this person because they know this person, Like just lead with like it sounds so corny, but like your heart and your joy and like the opportunities will come, because I think joy is contagious and people want to be around people who are like enjoying their lives and like genuine So that would be like my best advice to anyone, honestly in any career is just like do
the things that make you happy and like like follow your happiness and the other stuff will kind of maybe fall into place.
I don't know