The Gamer Blog: Brandon Lloyd on the Bears NBA 2K9 League

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"I'll get you, Grossman, if it's the last thing I do!"

Wander into the Chicago Bears players' lounge after practice and you'll see everything from Brian Urlacher and Robbie Gould looking like Forrest Gump on the ping-pong table, to Greg Olsen destroying all comers at shuffleboard. But if you want to find the most intense competition, look no further than an NBA 2K9 league so fierce, the players involved actually wear basketball jerseys to represent their teams while they play.

"We have an ongoing feud in our locker room about who is the best at NBA 2K9," explains wide receiver Brandon Lloyd. "I was dominating everyone at 2K8, but when 2K9 came out, everybody picked their one team and we can't switch. My squad is the Dallas Mavericks."

Other Bears involved in the 2K9 league include Adrian Peterson, Rex Grossman, Jason McKie, Devin Hester and Chris Williams.

"I actually keep losing to Rex," says Lloyd. "He plays as the Houston Rockets and he's using the biggest glitch ever—Brent Barry can't miss in that game. And he has the quickest release, so you can't block the shot.

"I even went out and bought a Dirk Nowitzki jersey and Rex bought a Yao Ming tee-shirt jersey that he plays in. It's hilarious—until he starts hitting all those threes."

But losing to the guy in a Yao Ming shirt isn't as bad as losing to a certain Bears fullback.

"Jason McKie is the biggest trash talker on our team," Lloyd says. "If you lose to him, you'll never hear the end of it."

Thankfully, Lloyd doesn't lose often at 2K9 (or any game for that matter). He's been playing pretty much non-stop since the day he found his brother's Atari 2600 in the garage, dusted it off and claimed it as his own.

"I'm a video game fanatic," he explains. "It was always such a big part of my childhood, because we used to split our weekends up, half the day playing outside, the other half in front of the Atari or Nintendo, depending on the decade."

These days, Lloyd isn't just playing games. He's also contributing to their creation, but not in ways you might think. Forget climbing in the mo-cap suit for Madden, instead, the football-player-turned-rapper known as B-Lloyd is developing songs to be included in various video games.

A few years ago, he had his first break in video game music by contributing the song "Take it to the Hoop" to the NBA Ballers soundtrack. His second song to land in a video game is called "Heavy" and appears in the new Activision game NPPL Championship Paintball 2009.

Adds Lloyd: "'Heavy' is a hip-hop/rock song that I did down in Arizona with a band called the Phunk Junkies. It fits the game perfect because sports have their own soundtrack to their culture, and I think the rock-rap blend is very fitting for the style of play of paintball.

"I feel such an attachment to making songs for video games because I consider myself a gamer. I consider myself a fan of music and a creator of music, so I know what I want to hear in a video game. It's funny, too, because when I originally recorded the song "Heavy" for my upcoming album, Master of Ceremony (Universal Music Group, February 2), all I kept thinking is how it would be a perfect song for a video game. For me to find a way to combine my passion for music and video games, it's an awesome opportunity and something I hope to do even more of in the future."

Now if only he could find a way to beat Rex and his Rockets.

To listen to "Heavy", check out B-Lloyd's official Web site

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