How Did Shaq and Dame Beef Start

Shaquille O'Neal takes the phase on the last solar day of the 2018 ACL Music Festival at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas, on Oct. xiv, 2018. Gary Miller/Getty Images

Rappers want to exist ballers and ballers want to be rappers.

Equally a erstwhile battle rapper who went undefeated on BET'due south 106 & Park "Freestyle Fri," I used to imagine playing in the NBA and hit the game-winning saucepan. For Damian Lillard (aka Dame D.O.L.Fifty.A.) and Shaquille O'Neal (aka DJ Diesel), who are ensnared in a rap beef, they didn't have to use their imaginations.

I try to avert amateur rap battles, specially glory bouts. But when Mordecai Lyon, the co-author of my forthcoming book Rebel to America, walked into my part talking most the O'Neal/Lillard rap beef, I pulled upwardly the tracks and listened.

I've been interested in the intersection of basketball and hip-hop, 2 worlds that are unlike merely equally competitive. The Lillard beef isn't O'Neal'southward first dispute with a new-schoolhouse rap artist, or an NBA player. He dropped some hard bars on Kobe Bryant in 2008, accusing him of breaking upwards his union to then-wife Shaunie O'Neal and telling Bryant, "Tell me how my a– gustation."

Say what? The Shaq vs. Dame D.O.L.Fifty.A. rap beef

Simply this time O'Neal appears to exist locked into a match he might not be able to win.

In Baronial, Lillard appeared on the Joe Budden Podcast and was asked if he had meliorate music than O'Neal. "I recollect I rap better than Shaq," Lillard said. "People weren't looking at it like it's a real rapper, it's like, that's Shaq rapping." A month after Sept. 25, O'Neal posted a four-infinitesimal video on Instagram with a message: "I except all challenges." Nine days afterwards O'Neal'south first diss, Lillard released "Reign Reign Get Away," his response to the old NBA star.

Earlier this week, O'Neal released "2nd Round Knockout" 3 days after Lillard'southward latest jab at him. O'Neal evokes the spirit of the tardily Notorious B.I.Thou. by spitting over the legendary rapper's "Victory" instrumental: "I'yard so mad, even God or Allah tin can't help you!" This is O'Neal's diss, simply parts of the menses are unnecessarily misogynistic: "When you lot run, I encounter that tampon cord in your shorts."

The world of rap isn't turning over tables virtually this rap boxing, but some in the industry are talking. "Dame'due south runway was merely overall more polished in pretty much every way, especially sound quality," said DJ Trackstar from Run the Jewels. "Shaq did a practiced chore trying to little brother him, merely Dame was able to rebuttal everything."

"Shaq did a adept job trying to petty brother him but Matriarch was able to rebuttal everything." — DJ Trackstar from Run the Jewels

"Dame own't playing wit Shaq. he rapping rapping," rapper Big Pooh tweeted.

"Cadence, flow, and voice, I'thousand going with Matriarch," said T-Dubb-O, a seasoned boxing rapper. "Dame's punches were light. As an emcee, I call back Shaq was actually getting busy. He spit all facts. Just his vox being old and his delivery being off made it difficult to savour his lyricism."

"Dame won," said Kanye West collaborator and Grammy-nominated songwriter GLC. When asked to elaborate, he said, " 'Gift numberless go purchased every time you go horny.' That line, no need for me to listen to his 2nd rail. It'southward over."

For years, O'Neal has been the consensus "best raplete." He signed with Jive Records in 1993, the aforementioned label equally KRS-Ane, Mobb Deep, E-40, Aaliyah and A Tribe Called Quest. His first album, Shaq Diesel, released 10 days before the tipoff of the 1993-1994 NBA flavour, went platinum. He recorded tracks with the greatest, such as Nas, B.I.G., Ice Cube, Jay-Z, RZA, Method Man, Big Pun, Common, Blackness Idea and Quincy Jones.

Now Lillard believes he is a natural-born rapper who happens to be playing in the NBA. He'southward even referred to himself as the J. Cole of the NBA. Musically, he has a passion for being recognized every bit a acme-tier emcee and, despite not having title rings to show for it, he's already a top-tier NBA franchise player.

And so when O'Neal said, "Faking like y'all Bron, you ain't even Trevor Ariza," Lillard morphed into Dame D.O.L.L.A. and said, "Yous big man hatin', mad at my existence / Had a song with Bad Boy / Well I'm Hashemite kingdom of jordan to the Pistons."

According to Lillard, he doesn't rap for fame and he respects the history. "We could've did a rail together, just pass the torch ," he says in "Reign Reign Go Abroad." He's albeit to O'Neal, I've acknowledged y'all did information technology starting time, and I would've loved to work with yous, simply now it's on.

Whether the O'Neal/Lillard beefiness goes on or not, this beef creates a new debate: Who is the best raplete live?

Tef Poe is a NABJ honor winning journalist, Harvard University'southward 2017 Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Beau, and an international recording creative person who has performed on billings with Big K.R.I.T., Kendrick Lamar, Run the Jewels, Yasin Bey, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco and many more than.

Mordecai Lyon is a Columbia Journalism School graduate and a researcher at Harvard Business Schoolhouse. Lyon is currently working with Tef Poe on his upcoming memoir Insubordinate to America.

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Source: https://andscape.com/features/lyricists-take-on-the-ongoing-rap-battle-between-shaq-and-dame/