by Howard Campbell
ORLANDO – Following their team’s emphatic 115-100 win Tuesday over the Milwaukee Bucks to seal the semi-finals of the NBA Eastern Conference 4-1, Miami Heat star players Jimmy Butler, Goran Dragić and Bam Adebayo celebrated by rapping the chorus to Inner Circle’s, “Bad Boys“.
It was fitting, since the song is synonymous with Miami, home to Inner Circle, the world-famous Jamaican reggae band formed in 1968 by brothers Roger and Ian Lewis.
The single first gained infamy as the theme song to Cops, a popular reality crime series that first aired on Fox in 1989. It drove the band’s album of the same name to Grammy success five years later, and is an integral part of the mega-successful Bad Boys movie franchise, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
Ian Lewis, younger of the brothers, wrote “Bad Boys” over 30 years ago. He said although many persons fail to grasp its true message, the song has become a “world anthem.”
“It’s a song about life, real life. About someone moving from adolescence to a man and don’t know what awaits him. I’ve done many interviews, from Variety to Rolling Stone, and I always tell them to read the lyrics,” Lewis explained.
See also: ‘Bad Boys’: The Writer of the ‘Cops’ Theme Song Wishes You Knew More Than the Chorus
Despite widespread assumption that Bad Boys is about crime in urban America, Lewis is happy it appeals to a diverse demographic.
“It move all people…the church man, the sportsman to Good Morning America,” he said.
Bad Boys is a show-stopper at Inner Circle concerts, whether in Miami, Paris, Prague or Munich.
As for the ‘Heat’, their opponents in the Eastern Conference final will be the winner of the other Eastern Conference semi-final between defending champions Toronto Raptors and the Boston Celtics which is tied at 3-3.
