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Shaquille O’Neal is an All-Star player with many accolades. He is still one of the most dominant players NBA has ever seen. He was one of basketball’s most feared players. Teams used to double and triple on him. They made game plans around this man yet he came out trumps most of the time.

Due to this, he has had mainstream success outside NBA as well. He’s been an actor, a rapper, a pro wrestler even. Today, he is the genial giant analyst on “Inside the NBA” and has a podcast of his own. Yet, today we have discovered important nuggets about his rapping days.

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He started having beef with a rapper called Skillz in and around 2004. Round 1 started with DJ Sickamore’s Drop Another Day mix tape with lines like, “I don’t care how mad your skills is, you can’t serve me.” Shortly after, in an interview with MTV News, Skillz said he was not only going to retaliate against number 34 after the NBA finals, but he was going to try to humiliate him.

Skillz had teamed up with DJ P Cutta & DJ Whoa for a special version of Cutta’s popular Street Wars mixtape series. This one was titled Street Wars: The Finals (Skillz vs. Shaq), and almost the entire mix tape is dedicated to Skillz dissing Shaq.

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He dissed Shaq on his free throws via the song “99 Free Throws,” a freestyle that uses the flow pattern and instrumental from Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.” He jabbed, “99 free throws and you won’t hit one/ When you at the foul line, I feel bad for you, son.”

Shaquille O’Neal and his career in Rap

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via Imago

Big Shaq was indeed a rapper in the ’90s and the 2000s. His side hustle was playing the NBA at that time. He released his debut album “Shaq Diesel” on October 26, 1993, almost three decades back. O’Neal had three more albums: “Shaq Fu: Da Return”, ” You Can’t Stop the Reign” and “Respect”.

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He released nine singles along with that with his most famous being “(I Know I Got) Skillz” featuring Def Jef. Shaq also rapped for the soundtracks of the films “Kazaam” and “Steel”. He acted in those films as well.

Did Shaq’s rap career really end with Skillz diss tape? We don’t know. At least, we enjoyed a period where “Shaq-Fu” was everywhere.