When Carmelo Anthony's son Kiyan Anthony recalled a nervous encounter with $250M rapper Drake: "I didn't know he was going to recognize me"

Long Island Lutheran High School player Kiyan Anthony is one of the top prospects in the Class of 2025. However, he is well-known off the court as well. The son of 10-time NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony, Kiyan once talked about the time he met $250M (Forbes) rapper Drake.

In a video uploaded on YouTube by Overtime on Sep. 16, 2023, the 6-foot-5 shooting guard talked about meeting the rapper. When the interviewer asked Anthony about meeting Drake, Anthony said he was nervous:

"No, it wasn't the first time, but it was the first time in a minute, like, I didn't know he was going to recognize me like that and come up to me. And I didn't, yeah, it was just, I was panicking, I'm not going to lie, yeah. He was like, 'Keep going.' That was definitely one of the biggest, you know, points of the summer besides basketball stuff." (19:09 - 19:31)

Anthony also talked about his goal to have rapper Lil Baby and Drake promote his clothing brand "One Way."

“My future goal for the brand is just to keep expanding. Eventually I want to open up a store in a city or something like that," Kiyan Anthony said. "I want to open up a store. If I could have anybody in One Way I would probably put a rapper like Lil Baby or like Drake in some One Way like on the stage. So, I feel like, one of those people had the brand on it would definitely blow.”

Being one of the most well-known players in high school basketball, Kiyan Anthony has an NIL value of $1.1 million, 11th in high school basketball and 60th in NIL 100 rankings. Anthony reportedly saw a 17% ($104K) increase in his NIL value in September.

According to On3, he signed three NIL deals last year. These include a deal with PSD Underwear on Sep. 21, Nerf on Sep. 28, and a modeling deal with Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation on Oct. 26. More recently, Anthony signed another deal with WME Sports on Nov. 4.

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Kiyan Anthony's run-up to college basketball

Kiyan Anthony committed to his father's alma mater Syracuse on Nov. 15 after considering offers from Florida, USC, Providence, Michigan and more.

The four-star recruit averaged 19.6 points, 1.5 assists and 4.6 rebounds for Team Melo in the Nike EYBL. He showed his scoring prowess in a match against Pro Skills Elite, scoring 28 points while shooting 50% from beyond the arc on May 18.

He had another great performance at the NBPA Top 100 camp in Orlando, scoring 42 points while shooting 53%, including 44.4% from the three-point line.

Anthony became Syracuse's fourth commitment after they signed Aaron Womack, Luke Fennell and Sadiq White.