We were so excited to get an envelope of cash after our set and I knew I had found my passion. I started my first band, Très Bien, at 15 and when we played our first show in front of a live audience, It felt like my destiny.

This became an obsession, there’s a box somewhere with a hundred or so tapes of my old demos, songs, and stuff I recorded with my band. I bought a Tascam 4-track cassette tape recorder and before I knew it I was recording all of my parts, the drums, the guitar, the bass, and the keyboard. I got a real kit and started playing drums at the age of 8, but what I wanted to do was write songs, so at 13, I asked my dad to teach me a few chords on the guitar, and those few chords grew into structured songs quickly. I would also set up my drum set, compiled of pots, pans, and pillows, and play them with wooden spoons. At home, I would carry around my toy guitar mimicking him as he would play.

I remember going to his band practices and live shows when I was a youngster. My father was a guitar player and had been in bands his whole life. And the TCP song is a fast-paced bass song that concludes the soundtrack perfectly, embodying the heart-racing nature of basketball.Hi Mike, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today. The previously released Nas song, which interpolates Tears for Fears' 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World,' falls a bit short of being another 'If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)' for the New York rapper, but it's still quite moving. But the real surprise comes late in the album with Nas' 'Rule' and TCP's 'Hoop It Up,' both much more adult than the preceding songs.

Elsewhere on Like Mike, Dupri includes so-so songs by TQ, Mario, and Solange, three artists likely to appeal to the same listeners who like Bow Wow. A little bit later in the album come the two standout Bow Wow songs, though: the Neptunes-produced 'Take Ya Home' and Just Blaze-produced 'Playin' the Game.' Both songs feature top-notch production and incredibly catchy hooks, so much so that the former became one of Bow Wow's biggest hits yet. Here Bow Wow, Fabolous, and Dupri drop a verse each about their passion for the game, while Fundisha sings the hook. The 15-year-old rapper stars in the film so it's expected that his contributions will be significant, and indeed they are, beginning with 'Basketball,' the album's opening song. So So Def boss Jermaine Dupri rounds up a number of playful pop-rap songs for the Like Mike soundtrack, unsurprisingly including a number of Lil' Bow Wow performances.

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