Music can fill NBA locker rooms. Mostly it’s guys listening on headphones; sometimes it’s blaring out loud. If it’s Tony Allen listening on headphones everyone gets to hear it anyway at the volumes he plays.
But it’s almost always hip-hop. Some Drake, Kanye West, sometime’s it’s edgier stuff. Sometimes it’s throwbacks like Biggie, Tupac, DMX.
And if it’s Jimmy Butler’s turn in the Chicago locker room, it’s some country too.
“I get my own playlist in warmups sometimes,” Butler told ProBasketballTalk. “My teammates don’t like it very much because it’s country music, but they get over it.”
Country? Yes. Starting with Taylor Swift.
“I like Taylor Swift,” Butler said. “I like music as a whole, but her music is kinda catchy. I’m sure she’ll hear this interview now and be like ‘what’s going on?’”
So what’s on his playlist?
“I like country music. I listen to a little hip-hop,” Butler told us. “But I try to listen to people I’ve gained relationships with over the years, so whether it’s Ludacris or Lee Brice or Jason Aldean, whoever it is I try to support them just like they support me.”
Butler remains out of the lineup right now, recovering from a strained elbow.
“The elbow is great, it is getting better,” Butler said. “I’m taking care of my body, so I’ll be back in no time.”
Butler is spending some of his time off the court working on Kellogg’s Give a Child Breakfast efforts. It’s a charity issue he says is not just a tax write off, this is something finds very personal — making sure children get fed breakfast before school. He was at a Chicago-area school last week to help promote the effort.
“We just want to raise awareness that one in every five kids may go to school hungry in the morning, and to try and change that we want to try and provide 1 billion servings of cereal and snacks by the end of 2016 and a million breakfasts by the end of 2015,” Butler said of the Kellogg’s Give a Child Breakfast campaign.
And if the kids at that schools he visits want to dance to a little Taylor Swift, he’s good with that.