Shaq’s friendship with Biggie Smalls, to put it simply, was notoriously big! (pun intended.) From music, to fashion, and beyond, they influenced each other. His old friend met a tragic end but Shaquille O’Neal still misses him. Evident from the athlete-rapper dropping their biggest collaboration and how he still talks about him. The NBA legend is now an EDM DJ with a residency at the Wynn Las Vegas. When it comes to music, he still thinks about the Notorious B.I.G. and what could’ve been different.

He stopped by Check In at Wynn to talk about his music career and more recently. The subject of Biggie Smalls came up. It’s no secret – because Shaq’s brought it up many times before – that he was one of the last people to speak to the rapper.

“The last time I saw him was the night before he passed away,” recalled O’Neal. “He was at a tattoo shop and I told him… I said, ‘hey man be careful.'” Ominously, the late Christopher Wallace was inviting the Lakers star to an event – a Soul Train Awards after-party in March 1997. “When he invited me to the party, I said I’ll be there, and I wasn’t able to make it.”

Biggie and his entourage left that party and were ambushed at a traffic light where the rapper was shot. He’d pass away in the hospital at the age of 24. Though younger, he had a great relationship with Shaq who says, “You know he was he was nice to me.”

Shaquille O’Neal has brought up this incident in the past with some degree of regret. He said before that he was dressed in a “cold white suit, white hat” and ready to go to that party, a couple of days after his birthday. He ended up taking a long nap and woke up to his mother informing him about Biggie Smalls’ murder. Over the years, Shaq wondered out loud if the outcome would have been different if he had gone to that party.

Shaq hangs on to his memories of Biggie Smalls

Shaquille O’Neal broke out in the rap scene on the East Coast during his rookie season. When he came to Los Angeles, he was trying to make a name as an athlete-rapper irrespective of the infamous East Coast-West Coast rivalry. And when the Notorious B.I.G. namedropped him in a song, Shaq wanted to work with him.

He recalled on Check-In that his manager got in touch with BIG’s manager to do a song. Christopher Wallace asked Shaq to write a few lines. Two weeks later, Biggie invited him to the studio at his home. And he told Shaq about his verse, “Big Dog, that’s tight.” Hearing that from his favorite rapper was a huge win for Shaq.

The Notorious B.I.G. would appear on Shaq’s 1996 album, “You Can’t Stop the Reign.” Three decades later, O’Neal re-released this track on streaming platforms in June 2024. It would end up charting on Billboard in its first week which cements Shaq’s feelings that his old friend “blessed” his music with some timeless bars.