October 30th will make 48 years since 60,000 people in Kinshasa, Zaire saw a 25 year old champion, George Foreman, exchange eight rounds of body-aching blows against a challenger six years his senior, Muhammad Ali. Gil Scott-Heron watched a tape of their historic bout when Alec Wilkinson profiled him for the New Yorker in 2010. He told the journalist, “I like to see unbelievable odds because that’s what I’ve been facing all these years. When I feel like giving up, I like to watch this.”

Kobe Bryant’s last game, the one where he scored 60 points against the Utah Jazz, is what defying unbelievable odds look like to me. I love the way Jeff Weiss described it in his retrospective for Complex. He sets the scene perfectly. Capturing all the absurd details of a miracle in motion.  

“It starts at the 9:31 mark. Kobe hits a wide-open three to bring them within nine and give him 40 for the night. With just under nine minutes, he sinks another three. It’s now 85-78, they’re playing Ludacris “Move Bitch,” and Larry Nance throws down a one-handed lob to bring them within five.

Only a few minutes left and the arena is struck by a dizzying palpable hope that Kobe will come back once more. We all understand that it has to end, and like all deaths, we can’t help but make it about ourselves. We want one final Kobe comeback because we want to believe that we can depart on our own terms. That even though something great has permanently ended, we can aspire to something better up ahead.

He knifes down the middle to get 45 points. He corkscrews and takes a shot so bad that even a coach’s son would cringe. He blows a lay-up, making him 17-of-45 on the night, tying his record for shot attempts—and that was an overtime game. The Jazz are back up nine. A sickening pallor and despair grips the crowd.

Then it happens. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it was the energy of the room, the emotion of the night, the latent genius lying in reserve for one last run. But there it was: the old Kobe, back for the last time. He blows past the defenders with speed we haven’t seen in years. Jay Z rises to his feet clapping. The “Kobe” chants start up again and the arena gets louder than I’ve ever heard it.” – Jeff Weiss (“Kobe’s Last Stand) 

Kobe wasn’t a young man in his prime, neither was Ali, but something happened in that fourth quarter, in that eighth round. In the midst of high stakes, genuine chaos, they were able to activate their bodies, calm their minds, and were able to move like they were young again. Swift in action, urgent with aggression, both winning over obstacles in a final flash of athletic brilliance.

I think rap is also home to those flashes. When you hear a song that feels so well executed that it almost seems mythical. “Self Love” by MAVI is such a song. His voice, his flow, how the sample sits, when the beat switches–each element building up to a fire-breathing finale. To have produced such a record at 19, in a dorm room, makes the music even more unbelievable. But that’s hip hop, the odds make the story.

What MAVI had to overcome in the three years since his debut album, Let the Sun Talk, can be found throughout his long-awaited sophomore, Laughing so Hard, it Hurts. The 16 track, 38-minute project has a softer, more tender touch. This isn’t the fire breather torching beats and holding a nation’s feet to the fire, but a confessionalist coming to terms with coming of age by examining the scabs and confronting the scars. It’s an honest work, thoughtful and well-produced. The textures are beautiful. The compositions are colorful and, like his gentle vocals, it all encourages relaxation, reflection, and reassurance. 

I’ll be writing more about the album, but for the sake of this Viewfinder, I want to highlight the intro, “High John.” MAVI tweeted ahead of the Laughing so Hard, it Hurts release that Zora Neale Hurston’s retelling stories of African folk hero High John inspired the alblum. Neale Hurston’s has a collection of folklore called The Sanctified Church where she retells the adventures of High John de Conquer. High John was said to be a man, a mighty man, who was first a whisper, a will to hope, a wish to find something worthy of laughter and song. 

High John was there during slavery, on the plantations, getting the best of Massa. He was looked at as superior to sorrow, able to beat the unbeatable. “He could beat it all, and what made it so cool, finish it off with a laugh,” Neale Hurston wrote. High John was their Kobe, their Ali, a reminder how unbelievable odds should be defied. 

I think of Laughing so Hard, it Hurts as a whisper that grows louder with every listen. This is Mavi’s will to hope, his wish of an album worthy of laughter and song. I recommend you read the stories of High John, listen to the songs by MAVI and Gil Scott-Heron, and remember Muhammad Ali and Kobe Bryant when facing the odds this week.