Shaquille O’Neal on the Los Angeles Lakers was a force of nature, an absolute beast. But his charged ego made it difficult to improve his chemistry with teammate Kobe Bryant. The friction eventually led to the collapse of the gold and purple dynasty. However, Shaq revealed that one event that was overplayed was his now infamous rap about the Lakers legend. He claimed the video was leaked for just $1500 but the Mamba was alright with it.
Advertisement
To be fair, the Kobe and Shaq beef started the second Bryant began to evolve as a player. O’Neal, who was at the height of his career, found Kobe’s confidence difficult to digest.
The young Mamba was everything Shaquille O’Neal had tried to avoid in Orlando. With Magic, he found Penny Hardaway taking away his limelight. Perhaps the 7ft 1″ center was afraid Bryant was going to pull a Penny on him.
The conflict grew into a straight-up cold war and that is when the infamous freestyle rap hit the market. Though Shaq assured Bryant was okay with it, it is likely he wasn’t.
Shaquille O’Neal rapped about Kobe Bryant
A super hit rapper with 150 million albums sold, Shaq is not just a hobby musician. He is legit. So legit that even the legendary Biggie once rapped with him.
As a rapper, Shaquille O’Neal also had the skill to freestyle. However, he chose the worst time and topic for the freestyle. He ended up dissing Kobe Bryant while their relationship was already strained.
In his book Shaq Uncut, O’Neal revealed how he meant nothing by the rap and it was mistaken as being an intended insult to his teammate. He also confessed that the video was leaked for just $1500. That’s a small price for what has now become a legendary moment in NBA history.
Shaq: “I’m rapping “Kobe can’t win without me” and “Tell me how my a** tastes.” I went a little overboard with the language, but other than that, it was good fun. The crowd was eating it up. If some wise guy hadn’t recorded it and posted it on YouTube, then nobody but the people there would have even known about it. But, instead, some guy sells it for $1,500 and everybody makes a big deal out of it. Why? We’ve been rapping for years, breaking each other down. It’s called freestyling. It’s done all the time, and everyone knows that. But now this rap has caused a big stink so I’ve got to call Kobe and say, “My bad.” He told me, “Don’t worry about it, dawg. I’m cool.”
Shaq made up with Kobe years after leaving the Lakers
Though things began to take a turn after Kobe and Shaq teamed up on the Western Conference All-Star team. The true turning for them was when Shaquille invited Kobe to his Big Podcast.
The two talked out on the show and came to the observation that they had handled things poorly as youngsters. Now that they were older, they found the beef immature. Lucky for us, two of the greatest Lakers players finally made up.
