While fans of the Minnesota Lynx anticipate another strong run to the WNBA finals this season, Northsiders have another reason to tune in. One of their own has joined the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brynne Crockett, known affectionately as Bdot, is the new in-arena host for the Lynx. Better put, she is the MC of energy and fan experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She revs up the crowd at the often sold-out Target Center, bringing fans to their feet when the score is close and making them part of the game with interviews they can watch on the arena\u2019s big screen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Crockett\u2019s favorite part of the game is the fourth-quarter pumper, where she hypes up fans for the final moments of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the job. It\u2019s a mix of all the fields I already work in, which is community building, media, and entertainment, plus my love for women\u2019s sports,\u201d she said. \u201cI can help cultivate a space I have been a part of as a fan, and now as a professional.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Crockett has always had an ease with the mic, much like Napheesa Collier with her fadeaway jumper.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bdot has worked as a host for KMOJ radio and is an award-winning local rapper. For the last 10 years, she has served as an announcer for various North High sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked what her story is, Crockett says it begins with her as a young girl who fell in love with Hip-hop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHip-hop is an art, a platform for our culture, for critical thought, and self-expression,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Crockett has always had a way with words. She grew up in a musical family. Amongst rap battling uncles and cousins freestyling for fun, a curly-brown puff ball would emerge and send the adults fleeing in defeat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her passion for connecting with the world as she sees it inspired her to begin writing her own songs. Her bedroom was Prince\u2019s former studio in his formative years, in the basement of the late musical matriarch, Bernadette Anderson, who helped raise Prince.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually, she got past the point of wanting to battle and wanted to tell her own story. Her music encourages people to chase their dreams, be uniquely themselves, and be confident.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The name Bdot, a shorter version of her full name, became what she graced the stages of Soundset and won the award for Hip-hop Artist of the Year with. But when \u201cBrynne\u201d stepped in front of the mirror, she wasn\u2019t sure who was looking back at her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started rapping and putting out music, it made me have to see myself for real,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Being young, Black, gay, and masculine-presenting wasn\u2019t easy for her to shape a confident identity. But she says being Bdot was the catalyst for being comfortable in her own skin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been Brynne. But when I started doing music, Bdot started to expose more and more parts of \u201cBrynne\u201d to myself,\u201d she said. \u201cWith Bdot, I came to realize that all parts of me were welcome.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bdot established her voice, her sound, and her ability to connect with others. Organically, the name Bdot has followed her beyond the stage. In addition to her music career, the North High grad made a decades-long career of serving the youth of North Minneapolis at community institutions like the YMCA and North High.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In these spaces, Bdot doesn\u2019t just mean musician, it means the big sister you\u2019ve always wanted to be, or the cool older cousin that you always want to hang out with, it means the person who will encourage you to be yourself at the park, just as she does in her music. Whether she was Brynne or Bdot, she was welcome everywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI owe the Northside so much,\u201d she said. \u201cThey saw me. I thought Bdot was just a part of the music and being on the stage, but by staying true to myself, and not being identified by things that are easy to see, I realized that no matter where I was, Bdot is the stage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Friends and fans describe her voice as both calming and healing, as well as exciting and memorable. It\u2019s one that can make you reflect, rise out of your seat, and\u00a0root for something. A voice, perfect for the Lynx and its sizable fan base.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She joins Jedidiah Jones, another Northsider and North High graduate, who is the public address announcer for the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was Jones who connected her to the Lynx.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brynne is big sis!\u201d Jones laughed. \u201cSeeing Bdot being able to flourish in who she is almost brings tears to my eyes. When I heard about the Lynx position opening up, I knew she was the epitome of what they were looking for. Her voice is the epitome of the Lynx. I knew they weren\u2019t going to turn that down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not Crockett\u2019s first run with the Lynx. In 2015, during the team\u2019s dynasty era, she wrote a song called \u201cBe Great\u201d and pitched it constantly to perform at the\u00a0Lynx halftime shows to no avail. A decade later, during her first game as the arena host, it was that song that welcomed her into the stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a full circle moment. We always wonder when it\u2019s going to get good, well, right now, it is good,\u201d she laughed. \u201cIt\u2019s all a process; if you allow yourself to sit in the process, good things will come.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She described a scene filled with laughter and joy, a community of fans and players excitedly fighting for another shot at glory, an arena filled with hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTo know how far I\u2019ve come with my own voice, and to be able to give a voice to the Northside, and now this community of WNBA fans is a blessing,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Little girls asked for her autograph at the end of the game. She gave herself a pep talk before running onto the court to interview players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBe yourself, be fun Bdot,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While fans of the Minnesota Lynx anticipate another strong run to the WNBA finals this season, Northsiders have…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":102058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1339,1519,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-102057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-minnesota-lynx","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114936553420276786","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}