Most makers of sports games license records from “hip” artists, sprinkle them throughout the title, and call it a day. Midway took the process a step further with NBA Ballers: Chosen One, enlisting Just Blaze to compose an entire musical score. The producer previously contributed one-off tracks to EA Sports but his work for Ballers was a different animal. “The process was like scoring a movie,” says Blaze, who made over 30 original beats for the game. “The workload was a lot heavier because you had to pay attention to what was going on in the game all the time.” Beats switch with in-game momentum swings, sometimes resulting in songs layering over each other. Moving forward, Just Blaze wants to follow RZA into film-scoring. Could Hollywood be his new side hustle? “The way the music industry is going,” he says, “I think rap could be the side hustle.”