Lucille O’Neal and Sonya Curry have a show together, Raising Fame, that is set to release on July 7th of this year. To promote their show, the mothers of the two NBA greats recently appeared on Sway’s Universe, where the topic of Shaquille O’Neal’s music was brought to the fore. More specifically, Sway brought up Shaq’s song, Biological Didn’t Bother, before Lucille explained how she felt about it.
Advertisement
O’Neal did not have much of a connection with his biological father up until very late on in his life. Instead, his stepfather, the late Phillip A. Harrison, raised him alongside Lucille.
Given how Harrison raised him, it made no difference to him that the former army man wasn’t his biological father, which the song in question is about. As she spoke about the track, Shaq’s mother spoke about how proud she was of him when it was released. She then revealed that Shaq was hilariously worried that she’d be jealous.
“When I heard that song, I knew that song came from his heart… It told the story, how he even got to that place that he felt that way. But out of the song came the truth. And it could’ve been anybody’s story… I was so proud of him when I heard it. And he thought I got jealous, but then he wrote a song about me”
In every sense of the phrase, Phillip A. Harrison raised Shaquille O’Neal as if his very own son. When it was time to punish him for his mischievous nature, he gave him tough love. And when it was time to reward him, he did so to the best of his ability.
To this day, O’Neal speaks beyond lovingly about his late stepfather. Perhaps it is exactly that emotion that he looked to communicate through his music, especially during a time when other artists wouldn’t broach the territory. And as he has done with so many other aspects of his life, he made everyone beyond proud doing it.
