Jeannie Buss On The Tyrese “National Anthem Controversy”
May 29, 2009 – 10:10 am by Tas Melas
Much ado about nothing? Tyrese changed the word ‘Flag’ for ‘Lakers’ when he performed the national anthem prior to the Nuggets-Lakers game in LA on Wednesday. This caused a stir throughout the media – because of the word switch, the new line was ‘Gave proof through the night that our Lakers were still there.’ As small as this may seem, the national anthem is something which should remained sacred and untouched. At the same time, this will pass and Tyrese will not be remembered for how he defamed the country. Marvin Gaye performed a funky version of the national anthem at the All-Star game in Los Angeles back in 1983 over top of his own music track, ‘Sexual Healing.’ That was critiqued back then but since has become a favorite, so much so that it was part of a commercial for the US Olympic Basketball team this past year (a damn good commercial at that). What Tyrese should be more ashamed of was the fact he shouted out his website at the end of the anthem. Now, that was sad. Executive Vice President of Business Operations for the Lakers, Jeannie Buss, joined ESPN Los Angeles to discuss if the organization knew of Tyrese’s lyric change beforehand, and her tweet (Twitter) which some implied was in favor of the alteration.
Did the Lakers endorse Tyrese changing the words of the anthem?
“It wasn’t an endorsement, we would never allow that, we did not approve it before hand. It was just a freelance on Tyrese’s part who did do a good job, he is a good performer, the fans responded to him but we would never want anyone to be offended. My apologies to anyone that was… It is not something that the Lakers approve, knew about before hand, we would never allow something like that to happen.”
On her tweet:
“I didn’t realize till later that he exchanged the word ‘Flag’ for ‘Lakers.’ I can totally understand why people would be offended by that and I would never, ever do anything to be disrespectful. When I tweeted it, it was really to describe what was going on with the crowd, how fired up everybody was and that he had changed the word. And, I was mistaken because I didn’t listen – I just assumed he had changed the word ‘Rockets’ because we had eliminated the Houston Rockets.”
Buss brings up another flub from the past (the incident was initially criticized but has since been vindicated):
“There was a controversy many years ago when Marvin Gaye performed the anthem before the All-Star game in Los Angeles and he changed the arrangement, and he used the backbeat from sexual healing. It was a groovy performance but people were offended by that as well. You know, the anthem isn’t really where you’re allowed to express your creativity without possibly offending people.”
Listen to Jeanie Buss on 710 ESPN with Mason & Ireland (starts at 8:20)
Tags: Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, National Anthem, NBA, Tyrese, Tyrese national anthem
