Shaq’s classic with Biggie is finally available on streaming services. The news was broken by FakeShoreDrive on X earlier this week, and the Hall of Fame big man confirmed the news Thursday afternoon (June 13).
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The year is 1996 and Shaquille O’Neal and the Notorious B.I.G. are two of the biggest figures in their respective fields. Shaq was entering the last year of his deal with the Orlando Magic before he headed west to the Los Angeles Lakers at the end of the 1995-1996 season. Biggie was getting ready to release his sophomore album, Life After Death, while in the throws of a beef with 2Pac. Big name-dropped the NBA player on the song “Gimme the Loot” off his debut album, Ready to Die, and the two had a mutual respect for each other ever since.
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Last year Shaq — who makes music under the moniker DJ Diesel — was on Drink Champs and revealed he asked Biggie to re-record the first verse because it was too explicit. “The first verse — I’m the only one that got it, I will never play it — he went off,” he told N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN. “And I d–n near had a tear in my eye because I had to press that button. I was like, ‘Uh, Big.’ He said, ‘Yeah, yeah for the kids, for the kids. My bad, Diesel and then he did the verse you heard.”
“You Can’t Stop the Reign” is the lead single of O’Neal’s third studio album of the same name, and there are multiple versions of the song. The official music video features three different Shaq verses minus Big, a bridge before the second verse, and reminds us how much we miss the era of when big budget videos were mini movies. Shaq is going full action star in this thing. He’s having futuristic roundtable meetings and getting chased by military choppers and guys on dirt bikes.
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Shaq is still doing his thing music wise, and is still nice with the raps with some saying he had the best verse on the “Shaq & Kobe (Remix)” posse cut alongside Rick Ross, Meek Mill and Dame D.O.L.L.A.
