Mark Pope was the one who told Lamont Butler to debut his song at Big Blue Madness

Lamont Butler serenaded the Rupp Arena crowd during Big Blue Madness with clever wordplay straight from the dome. The San Diego State transfer wanted to make waves in what was his first and only BBM. What better way to do that than by debuting your newest rap song alongside your teammates in front of 20,000-plus screaming fans?

“I got a lot of great feedback from it. I’m just having fun, honestly,” Butler, who rattled off the song’s lyrics from the top of the lower level all the way to the middle of the ASB GlassFloor, said at SEC Media Days. “Rapping is just something I do for fun. Me and my guys back in San Diego State, we started doing it. So it was cool to have it actually out and then do it for Big Blue. But this is all for fun.”

One of Butler’s new teammates in Lexington, Jaxson Robinson, says that Butler put together the entire song in the days leading up to Big Blue Madness. The whole team was treated to a pre-release listening of the song ahead of the annual preseason event. In fact, the players workout to some of Butler’s music. He has “a whole bunch” of songs in the bank just waiting to hit the internet.

“It’s pretty cool just to see that he has other hobbies outside of basketball that he’s passionate about,” Robinson said.

And as it turns out, it wasn’t even Butler’s idea to perform at BBM. Nope. That was all Mark Pope, Kentucky’s energetic head coach who is all about trying to pump some juice back into the fanbase.

“You know who told me to do it was Coach Pope. He actually convinced me,” Butler said. “I didn’t want to do it because I felt like it was doing too much. But he’s the one that actually convinced me to go out there and perform in Big Blue. And I’m glad it happened. It was fun.”

As another cool wrinkle, Butler made sure to mention all of his Kentucky teammates in the song’s lyrics. It was a shoutout to the new friends he’s made in a short amount of time (and a way to show off his creative wordplay), but it was also meant to connect this group to the fans, who still don’t really know much about the actual players on this roster just yet.

“I wanted to show off my teammates, talking about them for the most part,” Butler added. “And then just for Big Blue. I mean, we got a whole new team, so for everybody we mentioned and shown, I think it just gives them a resonance with everybody. So that’s why I did it.”

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