Kevin Durant revealed he and LeBron James recorded roughly three rap songs together, not just the one track fans have heard. Only one collaboration has ever surfaced publicly. This changes the entire story around their 2011 studio sessions.
Durant made the revelation on Thursday’s episode of the Boardroom Talks podcast, telling host Speedy Morman around the 50-minute mark that the pair cut multiple tracks while working out together in Akron. That workout connection lines up with other recent viral LeBron James training footage that keeps circulating among NBA fans hungry for behind-the-scenes access.
Kevin Durant Says The Songs Never Left Akron
Durant credited himself and his agent, Rich Paul, with talking James into rapping in the first place. He described James as reluctant early on, saying any first attempt tends to come out forced before the artist settles into a natural flow.
Asked directly where the unreleased tracks currently sit, Durant said he wasn’t certain. He guessed the recordings remain with someone tied to the Akron studio where the sessions happened, possibly an engineer who still has the files. That lines up with contemporaneous accounts of the session itself, which described the pair recording over several existing instrumentals, including a handful of Watch the Throne beats, in addition to original material, well before Durant’s own account this week.
What Is Confirmed About The Recordings
Only one song from those sessions has ever reached the public. Producer Franky Wahoo released a track called “It Ain’t Easy” in 2018, featuring both James and Durant rapping over a beat.
According to ESPN’s reporting on the release, the recording dates back to the 2011 NBA lockout, when Durant played for the Oklahoma City Thunder and James suited up for the Miami Heat. Durant said the version that eventually leaked used a different beat than the one they originally rapped over, and he wasn’t shy about his opinion of the swap.
He said the beat change made the final song even worse than it needed to be. That detail matters for anyone hoping the other two tracks might someday surface in their original form.
The 2011 Lockout-Era Collaboration
The lockout year forced a lot of NBA stars into unusual side projects, and Durant and James apparently used the downtime to experiment in a recording booth together. It’s a strange footnote in the timeline of two players who were, at that point, still building toward the rivalry and later friendship that would define the league for a decade.
The unreleased material could carry real financial weight if it ever surfaces. Wahoo has said TMZ attempted to buy “It Ain’t Easy” for $250,000 back in 2017, per ESPN’s report, before the track eventually made it online through other channels the following year.
That number gives some indication of what collectors and media outlets might pay for the two still-missing songs. Given how quickly athlete crossover content tends to go viral, similar to the buzz around Dwyane Wade’s beard roast moment, a surfaced Durant-James track from 2011 would almost certainly move fast across social media.
For now, the story stays incomplete. Durant confirmed the existence of three songs, named the people involved in getting James to rap, and explained why the one public track disappointed him. The rest remains buried somewhere in an Akron studio, waiting for someone to hit play.
