GELO Is Billboard’s Hip-Hop Rookie of the Year

As LiAngelo Ball’s brothers, top NBA draft picks Lonzo and LaMelo, were inking NBA contracts worth upwards of eight figures, LiAngelo went undrafted and couldn’t make an NBA roster. His own hoop dreams were on life support — but his confidence never wavered.

“I always told myself I would be great at something, even if the hoops don’t work,” the 26-year-old now says with conviction. “I just never knew it would be rap, and I just ran with it.”

The first hit rap song of 2025 came not from Drake, Kendrick Lamar or Travis Scott, but from the 6-foot-5, tattoo-covered Ball — who now records as GELO. In January, the hooper-turned-rapper set social media ablaze with his scorching “Tweaker,” a nostalgic sonic recall to Big Tymers with an earworm of a hook that organically rose from NBA and NFL locker rooms to the Billboard charts in just two weeks.

Livestreamers serve as today’s 106 & Park, and GELO accordingly had first previewed a snippet of the thumping track during an appearance with popular streaming personality N3on in late December. “When it got posted, everybody was sending it back to me like, ‘Hey, bro, you need to start making music,’ ” Ball recalls. “I had hella music, but I’d just [keep] it to myself until I did that.”

The song’s catchy “I might swerve, bend that corner, whoa” hook took on a life of its own on social media, and “Tweaker” soundtracked a 2000s-themed skit from internet comedian Druski, filled with tall T-shirts and baggy jorts. Memes flooded X that riffed on its throwback aesthetic, ranging from fans inserting “Tweaker” on the ­Madden NFL 2005 soundtrack to jokingly burning a “Tweaker” CD.

Soon the full single premiered on WorldStarHipHop, and it hit streaming services on Jan. 3. “Tweaker” catapulted to a top 40 Billboard Hot 100 debut (and a No. 29 peak) with 12.4 million streams in the United States in its opening week, according to Luminate.

Labels quickly came calling and GELO wasted no time signing with Def Jam — a deal announced Jan. 13 by ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania, who reported that it was “worth as much as $13 million, with $8 million guaranteed,” while GELO retained ownership of his masters. (Def Jam declined to comment on the contract’s specifics.)

Rolling Loud California added GELO to its March festival lineup, and he gave “Tweaker” its live debut in front of 80,000 NFL fans in Detroit during the Lions’ playoff game against the Washington Commanders on Jan. 18.

“Tweaker” also yielded some impressive co-signs: GELO heard from industry vets like E-40, Tyga, Boosie Badazz and Lil Wayne, the lattermost of whom appeared on the “Tweaker” remix; GELO calls the collaboration a “perfect fit” and compares having Weezy on a track to “hooping with [Michael] Jordan.”

Even though GELO’s meteoric success came faster than he could “swerve bend that corner,” his life prepared him for the bright lights. With Lonzo leading the way as ESPN’s top-ranked high school player in California for the class of 2016, the Ball brothers grew up as basketball royalty in the Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills. Looking back, GELO laughs at how he was signing autographs for classmates as long ago as elementary school, as the trio went on to pack high school gyms across the state.

But it’s easy to see where he gets his confidence: His father, the boisterous patriarch LaVar Ball who played collegiate basketball and had a practice squad stint in the NFL, has long promoted his sons’ NBA aspirations and his own Big Baller Brand of sports apparel. “My dad showed me how to be like that since [I was] real young,” GELO says. “So I think my mind is poised.”

Lonzo and LaMelo were drafted into the NBA in 2017 and 2020, respectively. But while GELO played collegiate hoops at UCLA and bounced from a Lithuanian league to brief tenures in training camps with the Detroit Pistons and Charlotte Hornets, he never suited up for an NBA game. Now, with a breakout hit, he wants to prove his talent goes way beyond just “Tweaker” — starting with his debut album, League of My Own, which arrived July 18. On the album, he comes out of the gate firing with the braggadocious, trunk-rattling opener “Pollaseeds,” a track targeting his opposition that interpolates Fast Life Yungstaz’ 2009 classic, “Swag Surfin’.” “I kind of wanted to reboot it a little bit and swag it out for the younger generation,” he explains.

The album’s not a complete sonic rehash of “Tweaker,” either. GELO’s experimentation took a melodic turn on “Humble Abode,” a vulnerable moment where he admits he’s not completely bulletproof. “It’s stuff that people go through every day, damn near, so I feel like [they] could relate,” he says. “It’s just a matter of putting it in a swaggy way on the beat.”

A deluxe edition of League of My Own is in the works and tentatively set for a September release. While the original album boasts a lone feature from GloRilla, GELO expects a few collaborations to land on the deluxe.

And as the chatter around GELO’s rap career, family and relationships has gotten louder, he has remained focused. “I don’t really listen to outside noise,” he says. “I’m pretty levelheaded, and I know what I’m about as a person.

“I do feel like I opened a lane for athletes in general,” he continues. “It’s probably more comfortable for them to put out music now. I’ll be telling all my homies this s–t. Bro, I could rap until I’m like 60. I feel like I have bangers for real.”

This story appears in the Aug. 30, 2025, issue of Billboard.