NEW YORK  As basketball fans cheer on their favorite teams throughout the NBA playoffs, they are often treated to a bevy of commercials. This year, many of those advertisements have a whole new vibe-a hip-hop vibe. Athletic-wear companies like Reebok, And 1, and Jordan, a division of Nike, have all recruited A-list hip-hop stars to sell their merchandise.

For Reebok, the idea was one whose time had come. With a roster of athletes including tennis champion Venus Williams, Houston Rockets guard Steve Francis, and Philadelphia 76ers guard Allen Iverson, the Canton, Mass.-based company realized that many of them were raised on hip-hop. So Reebok enlisted the services of New York-based advertising firm the Arnell Group. It doesn’t hurt that Interscope executive VP Steve Stoute also serves as chairman of PASS, the Arnell Group’s urban marketing unit.

A lot of ballers want to be rappers, and a lot of rappers want to be ballers, Stoute says. There’s a very thin line between the lifestyles of a rapper and a basketball player; the cultures are very similar. You have to do your thing, you have to represent your game. Knowing that, we just thought it would be a great marriage.

That idea resulted in Reebok’s Sounds & Rhythm of Sport, a multi-tiered marketing initiative combining the worlds of music and sports to promote the brand’s street inspired Rbk Collection. Launched in January, the campaign is spearheaded by commercials that team Reebok’s athletic endorsers with rap stars like Jadakiss, Missy Misdemeanor Elliott, and Scarface.

While creating the campaign, Stoute was able to use his years in the music business to his benefit. I have direct relationships with the artists, so I can pitch Jadakiss a concept where he’s rapping over a track that samples a bouncing basketball. I can lay that out to him, and he’ll see the vision. Because of my music business credentials, the artists trust my vision on the spot.

Reebok has employed the Arnell Group and PASS; it’s given them the opportunity to get into the culture in a deep way, Stoute adds. We can take it to TV, or the streets, or to music retail chains. We make The Rhythm of Sport a 3D event.

Scarface, who teamed with Francis in one advertisement, saw his involvement as both personally and professionally beneficial. Steve [Francis] is my partner, as well as a great basketball player, Scarface says. Outside of our personal relationship, we also have a working relationship through his clothing line, We Are 1. Ever since he came to my city, we welcomed each other with open arms.

It’s all about business, Scarface adds. It's selling sneakers, and the No. 1 way of doing that is through hip-hop. If Jadakiss is wearing the Iverson sneakers, I’m going to get me a pair, because he’s never told me anything fucked-up. They must be the shit. That goes for everyone involved in these campaigns. In addition to the TV spots, Sounds & Rhythm of Sport also includes consumer and retail promotions like the Source Unsigned Hype Freestyle Promotion, Reebok All Access Pass, and the campaign’s most unique retail feature: displays featuring forthcoming Rbk products in music retailers like Wherehouse and FYE.

Those are all natural synergies that exist outside of a rapper and a basketball player, Stoute says of the campaign’s initiatives. Music and sports are very close-knit, from the nature of competition to the attitudes and cultures of the athletes and artists.