“Was Just Getting Drunk, DJing, Living in My Mama’s Basement”: Grammy Award Winner Reveals Personal Details to Shaquille O’Neal

Donning a basketball player’s hat, Shaquille O’Neal has played alongside some of the greatest players in NBA. Likewise, as a rapper and a DJ, O’Neal has collaborated with other fellow legendary musicians. Shaq’s collaboration with the late East Coast hip-hop legend Biggie Smalls is one of the landmark episodes in the former’s illustrious hip-hop career. Besides, DJ Diesel has also befriended some hip-hop icons like JayZ. Recently, O’Neal has had an interesting conversation with one of his friends from the music world.

The Grammy Award winner, Lil Jon, is one of the many musicians with whom Shaquille O’Neal shares a close bond with. In a free-wheeling conversation with O’Neal, Lil Jon went candid about his personal journey as a musician.

Rapping legend opens up about his personal journey to Shaquille O’Neal

Shaquille O’Neal and Lil Jon go back a long way. The Los Angeles Lakers legend knows quite a lot about Lil Jon’s stories and how he began his humble pursuit of music. The Grammy winning rapper has joined Shaquille O’Neal and crew in the latest episode of The Big Podcast. Apparently, Shaq kick-started an interesting conversation with Jon, who eventually revealed his personal details to the crew.“I know your story. But for the average person who doesn’t know your story, can you give us a brief synopsis of how you started and how long it took to get to the top?,” O’Neal asked Lil Jon.

Jon traced back the beginning of his music career to the 90s in Atlanta, when he established himself as a popular DJ.“I was so hot as a DJ in Atlanta, so Jermaine Dupri came to me and he was like, ‘I am starting my record label So So def. I want you to work for me. Do street promotions and A and R.’ I didn’t even know what A and R was, because I wasn’t in the music industry, I was just getting drunk DJing, living in my mama’s basement and so he gave me my first real industry job,” said Lil Jon.

Despite his humble beginnings, Lil Jon went on to become one of the iconic hip-hop figures of the day. Turns out Lil Jon has not just collaborated with rappers like Ludacris and Jermaine Dupri, but has teamed up with Shaquille O’Neal.

Shaquille O’Neal had once teamed up with Lil Jon

In 2019, Shaquille O’Neal and Lil Jon teamed up with DJ Nghtmre to release the song Bang. While Shaq and DJ Nghtmre worked inside the studio to make Bang, Lil Jon joined the two to spit a verse for the EDM track. Besides, Bang had marked O’Neal’s return to music after a 20-year break.

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In the recent episode of his podcast, Shaq got to know that Lil Jon too is residing in Atlanta. Upon discovering this, the Diesel told Jon that the two could do music together. Jon told O’Neal that he is always ready to do music with him.

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