In 1993, Shaquille O’Neal entered into the music world and left a historic mark. With his 12-track effort, the project peaked at No. 25 on the Billboard 200 chart. Later he would even collaborate with The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, and Nas just to name a few. Who can forget the Shaq Diesel diss track on Shannon Sharpe in 2024? But recently the Lakers legend is collaborating to promote a young artist, which reminded him of an old hooping battle.

“However, he is a very talented. This reminded me of Jordan vs Dominique. 2 great players but one of them’s got to win.” Not just Shaq but the other two judges too selected the same ‘100Kufis’ for the unanimous decision. “But Tymathe Lamb keep it going brother, keep it going,” via Whozfire. And one may ask what’s unique about the project.

Shaquille O’Neal and Kayo are judging independent artists in his 64-artist music tournament. It is a head-to-head, song versus song, in a single-elimination, NCAA-style bracket. Plus, the winner would get to win $30,000, the chance to have their song and a feature on NBA 2K26. That’s not all the $500 worth Shaq is also sponsoring a fully paid trip to record two tracks with legendary producer Jazze Pha. In the latest episode, they had Trae Da Truth as the guest judge.

The Houston-based rapper even raised the stake from his end. Promising a free feature to the artist plus his latest Bumpboxx speakers with Shaquille O’Neal Superman stickers. But if somebody thinks Shaquille O’Neal shouldn’t be a judge, “I’ve been in the studio [with]…Erick Sermon (of the legendary EPMD), Jay-Z, Mobb Deep, Redman, Canibus, KRS-One, Snoop [Dogg], Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Quik, Quincy Jones, Fat Joe, Michael Jackson, Big Pun,” Shaq said on round 1 episode.

He continued, “So, I know what’s going to hit and what’s not going to hit. 95 South down in Orlando, Backstreet Boys did their first album in my studio.” That’s why O’Neal’s first album also received platinum by RIAA.

Shaquille O’Neal and his hit 2024 year

Apart from the infamous beef with Shannon Sharpe, DJ Diesel did drop old-school music not once, but twice. This is apart from his DJing career and the tour he has been continuing around the world. In June, Shaquille O’Neal announced that his collaboration with Biggie’s classic “You Can’t Stop The Reign” would be available on all streaming platforms. In two weeks’ time, it had crossed 1,965,008 streams.

Currently, the song has 3,211,471 streams on Spotify and is a solid hit. Apart from that, the 4x NBA Champion also announced his previously unreleased album featuring a song with Jay-Z, Nas, and Lord Tariq. ‘No Love Lost’ also has garnered over 840,617 streams on Spotify. Apart from this, O’Neal also collaborated with a previous lesser-known Mexican rap duo.

This year they dropped the song titled ‘RINGS’ which is a fun diss track on Charles Barkley. Known as Coyote, they released a video where an animated version of Shaq ripped off Charles Barkley’s head and dunked it! So the love for rap is an old affair, let’s once again remember that in 1993, his debut album Shaq Diesel’ sold over a million copies.

Stay tuned for more such updates and join us for the exciting second episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and Mountain West All-Freshman Team Selection, Asia Avinger.