The NBA Playoffs are heating up… heading into the second round. To celebrate and get back into rap, Shaquille O’Neal is about to drop a new hip-hop single. The track is called “King Talk,” and will be out around May 2.
The new track is a collaboration with Ghanian-American rapper Blackway. Shaq has been talking about the new track. He started teasing it to fans back in February on his Twitter, IG and TikTok accounts.
The teaser video is worth checking out. It included an animated video showing (and celebrating) LeBron James passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.
For those that have followed Shaq’s musical career, you know he’s been “in the business” for a long time… The 51-year-old NBA superstar had big-time success back in the 1990’s under the name of his musical alter-ego, DJ Diesel. In ‘93, he released “Shaq Diesel,” which included the gold-selling singles “What’s Up Doc? (Can We Rock)” and “(I Know I Got) Skillz” — which both cracked the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. There were also colabs with late A Tribe Called Quest rapper Phife Dawg, Def Jef and Fu-Schnickens.
Then in 1994, he followed up with Shaq Fu: Da Return. This record also went gold, and featured songs with Method Man, RZA, Redman and Keith Murray. His third album, 1996’s You Can’t Stop the Reign, included collaborations with the Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Rakim, DJ Quik, Mobb Deep and Peter Gunz.
His 1998 album, called Respect, featured a collaboration with Kobe Bryant, who released his own rap song featuring Tyra Banks in the early 2000s and also rapped on a remix of Destiny’s Child’s Grammy-winning hit “Say My Name.”
Of course along with the records themselves, Shaq has also done some musical moonlighting as DJ Diesel, performing electronic dance music at festivals and his own event, the pre-Super Bowl extravaganza called Shaq’s Fun House, which we’ve covered in detail here on the ShaqFu Radio blog.
In an interview with media newspaper The Hollywood Reporter, O’Neal compared the rush of performing live onstage to playing on the basketball court: “It’s like being in a basketball game and having people come and cheer you on and support you. I just want everybody to have a good time.”
“King Talk”’ was produced by Koko and will be released on streaming platforms via Hive Music/Position Music. Blackway is best known for appearing on the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning animation film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse with the song “What’s Up Danger,” a collaboration with duo Black Caviar.
So, keep your eyes and ears open for Shaq’s new track! We’ll have more info when the exact drop-date comes around.
