Shaquille O’Neal, Whose ‘Shaq Diesel’ Sold Over 1,500,000 Copies, Declares Himself the “Greatest Basketball Player to Ever Rap”

Shaquille O’Neal is not only one of the biggest basketball athletes to ever play the game of basketball he is also one of the biggest rapper-athlete ever. The Diesel is one of the NBA’s original rappers who was the motivation for even the likes of Allen Iverson and many to come after him.

Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers has been the biggest rap sensation in the last decade, but even in this whole new world of superstardom, he does not have a platinum album like O’Neal.

That might be the reason Shaq also believes he is the greatest athlete-rapper to ever pick up the microphone.

Shaquille O’Neal shares a post declaring himself the greatest basketball-rapper ever

$400,000,000 million worth Lakers’ legend did plenty of things like nobody else on the hardwood as well as outside his profession. One of those things was spitting his feelings through music with a microphone in his life-size hands which were too big for even a basketball.

And the man prides himself to be one of the greatest to ever play basketball and also to be THE greatest athlete to ever rap.

 

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A post shared by Hot Freestyle (@hotfreestyle)

It was a media company Hot Free Style that tagged him as “the greatest basketball player to ever rap,” the big man just gave them the free hand to do so. But, there was a time when O’Neal was humble about it.

When O’Neal revealed his platinum album was just a lucky hit

Let’s be honest. Even if we had half the success as O’Neal we would be boasting about it for a lifetime. The man sold about  1,500,000 copies of the ‘Shaq Diesel‘ album in 1993 while tearing some teams of legends apart on the basketball court.

The man is relatively humble knowing everything he has achieved in his life. But he was even more down to earth back in the day.

“I probably was a lucky platinum artist. There were probably some Shaq fans that bought it. Then there were the Shaq-haters that bought it because they wanted to boo me and say that I can’t rap. You add all of that together, and it becomes a million copies,” Shaq once said about his platinum plaque album.

Mind you, that was also his debut album. Retired from basketball, O’Neal still spits on a microphone regularly, but on the sets of TNT, where he has been an analyst for more than 12 years.

About the author

Akash Murty

An Electrical and Electronics Engineer by degree, Akash Murty is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. Previously a Software Engineer, Murty couldn’t keep himself away from sports, and his knack for writing and putting his opinion forward brought him to the TSR. A big Soccer enthusiast, his interest in basketball developed late, as he got access to a hoop for the first time at 17. Following this, he started watching basketball at the 2012 Olympics, which transitioned to NBA, and he became a fan of the game as he watched LeBron James dominate the league. Him being an avid learner of the game and ritually following the league for around a decade, he now writes articles ranging from throwbacks, and live game reports, to gossip. LA Lakers are his favourite basketball team, while Chelsea has his heart in football. He also likes travelling, reading fiction, and sometimes cooking.

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