Duke guard using her platform to take stand against racial injustice
DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Duke guard Mikayla Boykin's passion for basketball is evident on the court averaging 7.1 points per game but basketball isn't her only dream.
"I've been rapping since high school but I didn't really take it serious until we got into quarantine," she said. "Now, I'm actually thinking about pursuing basketball and rapping. I want to be an artist as well as a professional basketball player."
Mikayla started writing as a way to process her thoughts and emotions after seeing the video of George Floyd's death.
"Honestly when I first saw the video I was speechless," she said. "I couldn't watch the video fully. It's just a lot of pain and honestly I can't even wrap my emotions around what I want to say. I was mad. I was sad. So many thoughts and things running through my mind. I was hurt for my brothers, my parents, my friends."
"Once I started writing I was like why not make this into a freestyle and that's a way that my voice could be heard," she added. "When I started writing, it just started flowing. It's crazy because it was like my thoughts, everything I was thinking and feeling at that moment was going to paper."
Boykin put out a freestyle on Twitter that now has more than 42,000 views.
"That was one way my voice could be heard all over the world," she said. "I feel like it has hit a lot of places across the world a lot of places have heard it. That was something that helped release my emotion or things like that."
"I would say basketball is like poetry as well rhythm and poetry," Boykin added. "Once you get in that grove it keeps going and going and going. That's kind of how I play basketball. I don't force anything to the game. I let the game come to me and I correlate that to my music, whatever flows it flows."
