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“Tired of All the Old Successful Fat People”: Shaquille O’Neal Explains Why He Asked Rapper GAWNE to Fly Out to Miami for Filming

Abhishek Dhariwal
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Known for his diverse experience in various fields, Shaquille O’Neal even tried his hand at the music industry and has a few music albums under his belt. Though it has been a while since fans have heard Shaq rap, he does indulge in DJing at music festivals around the country. But lately, The Big Aristotle has been showering this young rapper with praise and love after constantly seeing old-school rappers online and further explaining why he decided to fly him out to Miami.

Rapper GAWNE released a music video for his song CHAOS a few months ago. What many may not know is that Hall of Famer and NBA legend, Shaquille O’Neal too was a part of the video after requesting the rapper to be in it.

In a behind-the-scenes video, Shaquille O’Neal revealed what prompted him to invite GAWNE out to Miami to shoot the music video for CHAOS. While talking to the rapper, The Big Shaqtus said,

“I’m tired of all the old successful fat people, like we need new music. So, I’m on the Gram every day and I saw you and I just kept seeing you like I hit that button and you kept popping up like right there.”

The Los Angeles Lakers legend even went on to add, “And I saw that one song and I said, ‘This motherf***ing kid is dope’.”

Shaq went on to mention how he was tired of seeing old-school rappers on his feed constantly and decided the world needed more new music from new rappers. As O’Neal is an avid Instagram user, he came across GAWNE and his music.

The four-time NBA champion was beyond impressed with GAWNE and that is what prompted Shaq to fly the young rapper out to Miami. After the two were done shooting the video for the song, Shaq even went on to gift GAWNE his Rolls Royce with the Superman logo on the front of the grill, as per Complex.

Shaquille O’Neal collaborates with GAWNE

The music video for GAWNE’s song titled CHAOS was released last year, back in December. After the video was live on YouTube on December 8, the video garnered nearly a million views, and fans were impressed with Shaq’s performance more than GAWNE’s.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by GAWNE (@lukegawne)

Here are a few reactions from fans on YouTube.

“It’s like shaq completed his main quest line in life and he’s going back to hit all the side quests.”

“Shaq out here flexing the fact he could have done anything he wanted. These bars are actually fire.”

“How does this song not have atleast 1 MILLION VIEWS YET⁉ SHAQ need to drop more songs! HE NEEDS TO DROP A FULL ALBUM HIGHKEY!”

After collaborating with the young rapper, Shaquille O’Neal even admitted to promoting the Chicago native during an interview with TheSource.

“GAWNE is next up and we’re stepping over any and everybody to get him there. I want to see all of his dreams come true. I’m about to tell the whole world about GAWNE!”

It truly was a refreshing experience to see Shaq along with another rapper. Let’s hope to see more collaborations between GAWNE and Shaquille O’Neal as the two go on to work closely with one another.

About the author

Abhishek Dhariwal

Abhishek Dhariwal

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A fan of Basketball since the late 2000s, Abhishek Dhaiwal has been covering the game for over five years. Having done his masters in Journalism and Mass Communication, Abhishek is an NBA sports journalist at The SportsRush. A fan of the San Antonio Spurs since the Tim Duncan era, Abhishek has an extensive knowledge of the sport and has covered more than 1500 articles. Having a firsthand experience of the sport, Abhishek has represented his city and state at a District and National level. And it is the same level of expertise he aims to bring while covering extensive topics both on and off the court of your favorite basketball stars.

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