- I love emoji tattoos
and I've done quite a few and I want one.
I really want the [beep], you know?
That's, like, my favorite emoji ever.
What's up GQ? I'm Bang Bang.
I'm a tattoo artist in New York City
and today we'll be reviewing the tattoos of some
of the biggest stars in the NBA and WNBA.
[laid-back hip-hop beat]
So I've been tattooing a long time.
You know, when I first started tattooing,
I would've never imagined I would tattoo LeBron James
or some of the great athletes
that I've gotten to meet and tattoo.
It's a little surreal to be here
and to be able to do my work for them,
who've done so much work.
So some of my clients are obviously LeBron, Rihanna,
Justin Bieber, Kylie Jenner, and Selena Gomez.
I could go on for days.
LeBron's got a bunch of tattoos and he's got a bunch
of really iconic tattoos as well.
I met LeBron five, six years ago through a mutual friend
who's in his close circle and they work on the shop together
and he was vetting me to make sure I'm, you know,
cool to be in the circle.
And so LeBron flew me to his house
when he was in Cleveland, we tattooed in his basement.
I did a portrait of his daughter
when she was about two years old.
Some of the things about LeBron's tattoos
is we can't tell what every one of them are
because some of 'em are older, some of 'em are coverups.
As we talked through all his tattoos,
he really loved his tattoos.
He has something on his chest
that I just remember him explaining
it was terribly painful.
He did pretty good on his low shoulder blade
when I tattooed him.
Little peak in the future, he wants a a lion
on his finger, like mine.
I think my favorite tattoo on LeBron,
other than the one I did of course is Chosen One.
I think there's something really poetic
in embracing the pressure and I think no one in the history
of sports has had the pressure that LeBron James has.
He was the chosen one when he was in eighth grade.
Everybody knew he'd be great
and that's a really hard thing to live up to,
so I love LeBron's Chosen One tattoo most.
Allen Iverson's style was one of a kind and still is.
There was a lot of controversy
surrounding Allen Iverson's tattoos.
And early on in his career, the marketing ads
and even toys that kids would buy,
they didn't have any tattoos, although he did,
and this was a really large point of contention.
Not only did Allen Iverson have lots of tattoos,
but he had his neck tattooed, he had his hands tattooed.
Even still now, it's a touch taboo
but not nearly what it was then.
Allen Iverson was a superstar in the late 90s
and early 2000s when no one had tattoos,
especially NBA players and athletes in general.
Really, he was the most famous, most tattooed person
for a long period of time.
Now we see many NBA players that look like this,
but at the time we didn't.
And so he's really the godfather of style to this community
of people who love, adore, and play basketball in the NBA.
Well it looks to me like, if it doesn't have wings,
Melo doesn't want it.
I love his theme of black, gray, red.
These work really well, they work well on his skin tone.
If LaMelo says he's done, I don't believe him.
- To be honest, I'm done.
- I'm gonna get a call next week.
- I'm just only gonna get, like, little tats, if anything.
- 70% of the adverse events that happen
or are recorded in tattooing are from red ink.
What the reason is is a little scientific and, you know,
probably based on immune response and sensitivity
to the particle.
The body is constantly breaking down our pigments
throughout our life.
Red ink can have inflammation
or irritation years after you get it,
So it's really based on your own biology,
your own biochemistry, and your immune response
to the pigment.
There's also colors like purple
and purple has a lot of reds in it.
And most of the reactions happen because of red.
If it's my vote, he's got work to do, but they look good.
I like that he's got good ones.
His brother's got better ones.
The artist that made Lonzo Ball's tattoos
really specializes in color, actually.
One of the most impressive things he's ever done
in black and gray is on Lonzo with this Civil Rights tattoo.
Obama, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King.
What's really most beautiful about Lonzo's tattoos,
again, is we can tell what it is right away,
we can tell who it is right away,
and there's a theme through his whole arm.
It's not a mishmash of styles or subjects.
It's done so large and we see these players so small on TV,
we still can tell what it is.
This is a really, really well done tattoo.
These will never need touch-ups.
They're done in such great contrast
and they're done at a scale so large
that when Lonzo's in his 50s and 60s,
we'll still be able to identify who these people are.
The brain has this way of understanding things
that are even very blurry.
It's kind of like this skillset.
We recognize faces, especially in iconic photography.
We know these images as much as we know these faces,
we know these shots, we know this photography.
And so it will always connect for people.
On his other arm, this kinda gates of heaven and scripture.
I really like that 'cause, again,
we have one body part that has one theme
and that's something that really speaks to me
and it's well thought out.
Luka's got some great ones.
You're never gonna regret an animal tattoo.
You might regret your girlfriend or boyfriend's name,
but good choice there.
I like the symmetry of his eagle
and his all-seeing eye a lot
and his tiger's really well done.
Luka's one of the people I really wanna tattoo, so call me.
J.R. Smith might have been
the most tattooed NBA player ever.
We had to, like, really try to find space
for J.R. to tattoo him, he was that tattooed.
And he was that tattooed early in his career.
When he played for the Knicks,
I would tattoo him all the time,
but it was never anything big.
They even made a T-shirt out of J.R. Smith's tattoos
that became very famous because he's so iconic
and he's one of the only athletes that I know
of that have the Jordan logo.
And I remember I was at Amar'e Stoudemire's house once
and, you know, Iman Shumpert was there and Melo
and J.R., who was on the team at the same time.
Iman Shumpert was like, "Man, I, you know,
I wanna get a a Jordan logo."
Amar'e Stoudemire was like, "Pfft, why?"
And he's like, "What do you mean why? It's Jordan!"
He goes, "Man, get your own logo."
And he didn't get it and I'll never forget that.
This kind of like, don't glorify anybody, glorify yourself.
That was a cool conversation I got to witness.
But specifically to J.R.,
I don't know if anybody's more tattooed than J.R..
I mean down to every finger, every knuckle,
every bit of him is tattooed.
Young Money. He's old money now, we're the same age.
I think my favorite thing about Brittney Griner's tattoos
is the color work.
The flowers, so there's a balance in her design.
There's this delicate side of her arm
and then there's this more aggressive side.
So it's not just a lion, it's a lion roaring
which probably speaks to a lot of who she is as a person.
There's certainly this, you know, delicate nature
to this person and there's certainly this aggressive nature,
this competitive athlete.
She's also got symmetry, a lion and a skull.
These are aggressive imagery.
And then birds, flowers, color.
It's really stark contrast between the two.
I like her style.
Ja Morant's got what looks to me like small ones first
and then decided, alright, it's sleeve time.
David Beckham, very famous cloud tattoos.
This cloud work filler of a sleeve style.
It's a quick, easy way to get it done.
It really looks great on him.
He avoided his ditch, the bend in his arm and his elbow,
which is a smart move.
The inside of the arm at the ditch
and the elbow are probably the most painful parts.
If someone has a lot of tattoos
and they're kind of patchwork and they really wanna
go full sleeve, clouds, filler, smoke, motion.
These are all ways to fill the gaps.
Generally when I'm designing a sleeve from scratch,
I'm thinking about the shape more from the start
than you'll see in people who get tattoos
in this style, like Ja.
So Ja probably got a cross and he got a piece
at the top of his arm in his inner bicep
and inner form and then that was it.
I would recommend usually to design your sleeve from start,
but it's not always the case.
What I really like about Ja's tattoos
is we can tell what they are right away
and I think that's a really important thing
that gets lost sometimes.
Steven Adams is a monster,
one of the most intimidating players
to ever play in the NBA.
I think the tattoos add to it a little bit.
I like the consistency of his theme.
It looks like he had a couple before he did these sleeves.
His bicep has an image, his forearm has a word.
Beyond that, even the ones that are there
were made really cohesive with this design.
Another thing I really like about this design,
if you look around the midsection of his arm,
towards his elbow, that motion goes with the body,
so as he bends that motion, it actually increases.
It doesn't move against the natural motion of the body,
which is something I really love with successful tattooing.
I love Kobe Bryant and I love his tattoos.
Kobe's tattoos are really iconic as well because we learned
about Kobe and we knew Kobe and we loved Kobe so much,
really identifying person
and then he showed up with a tattoo.
And that was cool.
Wasn't something we expected to see from Kobe,
but it was also something delicate,
this crown with butterflies.
And then he kept getting tattooed and every one
of his tattoos were a tribute to someone he loved.
We could tell really easily what's most important
to Kobe Bryant through his tattoos.
I think it's really beautiful
that many NBA players have gotten tattoos to Kobe
as him being one of the most important people to them.
There's some poetry there.
My favorite thing about Courtney Williams's tattoo
is there's a theme, right side.
And then I notice she's got one tattoo
on her left shoulder there and I was like,
"Oh man, almost perfect."
I'm sure she'll continue getting tattooed
and that'll balance, but her peace sign's really dope.
Similar to what Allen Iverson did in the NBA,
Courtney Williams is kinda having some
of that influence now in the WNBA as well.
We don't see a lot of WNBA players heavily tattooed,
but Courtney's one of 'em.
She's got a dope style.
Well, her lion tattoo is dope.
And she's even got her hand tattooed, so she's in the club.
- [Interviewer] How bad do you think that knee tat hurt?
- Knee tattoos are serious just in general.
When you get a knee tattoo that's big,
solid black, you're tough.
Tougher than me, that's for sure.
What I really love about Dame's tattoos, especially the one
on his left hand side and we're seeing the scripture,
is that angle moves with his body,
so it actually creates a shape.
We're never gonna sit down
and be able to read Dame's tattoo.
As far as imaging goes, it creates a really unique shape
and image and frame of him
and so I love this tattoo of this scripture on his arm.
You see what I'm saying,
how that angle changes with his body motion
and it all points to his center point?
I really think that's beautiful.
It looks like Dame got a lot of tattoos throughout his life,
maybe at multiple periods, but the consistency
of how they're tied together is really well.
We call it filler, right, and so it's not any one thing.
It's just background.
Sometimes it's noise, sometimes it's clouds,
sometimes it's motion or just gray shading
to frame the image for the eye.
I love Dame's tattoos.
His chest tattoo's pretty intricate. It's beautiful.
Jordan Clarkson's a baller.
The first thing that I see is the symmetrical portraits.
I'm not sure who they are, but I'll know
that those people are most important to him.
So as you look down, these people are right here.
And that's part of his identity.
What's the viewing angle of people and how do they view you?
What's your head-on image?
And having two portraits right there says a lot about him.
Praying hands, he's got Nipsey,
he's got a couple of portraits.
I like his gambler tattoo a lot. This is cool.
He's got a Bobblehead superhero son figure. That's cute.
I would bet they were done at separate times.
I bet he had his portrait of his son done
and then he's like, "Lemme make him a little superhero."
Dude, he's heavily tattooed.
There's not a spot left on this arm. Maybe his thumb.
He's got his fingers tattooed, his hands tattooed.
He's what we call full.
Kevin Durant has my favorite nickname ever, Slim Reaper.
Kevin Durant ever came to me and said, "What should I get?"
I'd say, "You have to get a reaper tattoo."
It's cold and that's just the coldest nickname ever.
His torso's heavily tattooed and,
yeah, you wouldn't guess it.
Kevin does a lot of things outside the NBA too
and so in business, and maybe that's part of his image
that he wants to keep, you know, more clean cut,
but he's pretty heavily tattooed on his stomach.
I don't often see people getting hidden tattoos.
It's almost like people wanna see them
and they want people to see them.
It's almost like this
what would I externalize that I feel internally?
And so that's almost a lot
of the reason why people get tattooed.
So to see somebody who's heavily tattooed,
but it's all very private, speaks to who Kevin Durant is.
He is kinda private, he is kinda reserved.
This speaks to his style.
I've never seen a Heath Ledger Joker tattoo.
[record scratches] I'm kidding.
I'm kidding, I'm totally kidding.
I've seen it a lot, I've seen it a lot.
But it's cool.
It speaks to that amazing actor who's not with us anymore
and the impact he had.
I really like DeMar DeRozan's Joker tattoo
and I like the symmetry of both
of his arms are tattooed with portraits,
so that's, again, plays to the balance of the body.
They fit his jersey well, they fit his body well.
He's got great shape and gray tattoos to match.
A lot of these it looks like,
although he has a sleeve, they weren't planned cohesively,
so he's got a bunch of different subject matter
and has filled spots, but he's done it well.
I think Richard Jefferson got this when he was,
like, 16 because I have a goofy tattoo just like this one.
That's what we all do.
It's like, "All right, what would I get and not regret?
Well, me, love me some me."
But it's cool, it's part of his image now.
I think he's such a polished guy,
it's strange that he has a tattoo almost to begin with.
And then he doesn't have many.
So if he was covered in tattoos,
this RJ wouldn't stick out at all, right?
LeBron's got LJ on him,
Jordan's got Clarkson on his back.
It's consistent and common and the only reason it sticks out
to us is it's the only one.
A great tattoo will define you
and so we find this exists throughout all sports,
throughout all celebrities.
Think of Rihanna's hand tattoo. We saw it in Super Bowl ads.
It was just her hand, but we knew who it was.
So if we saw this tattoo
and we didn't see Richard Jefferson,
we'd still know who it is.
And so if that connection is made,
I always think it's a great tattoo.
Advice to young players would be,
if you're going to get tattooed, get great tattoos.
You can find great artists,
you have access to great artists,
they all wanna tattoo you,
they wanna do something great for you.
Don't be the designer of your tattoo.
Find somebody who's so great at tattooing
and designing tattoos, and then speak about your idea
and come up with a plan that's gonna look great visually.
NBA players are great at playing in the NBA.
Sometimes they're not great at designing tattoos
and so leverage an artist's skillset,
let them help you design something that'll be iconic
and timeless, and you'll enjoy your tattoo forever.
Thanks for watching, I'll see you next time.