Published on Nov 27, 1998
Okay. I’ll admit it. Way back when, I bought this album. I was
young, dumb and looking to waste some bucks. Now, I know
better.
Basically, this album can be seen as a concept album. The
concept? Shaquille O’Neal is the biggest, baddest, toughest, best
player ever–in basketball or in any other aspect of life. Now,
Dennis Rodman notwithstanding, it’s hard to argue with Shaq’s
presence on the basketball court (well, except at the free-throw
line). But not all of his talents need to be shared outside of the
basketball court–i.e.
Steel.
Look at what I mean. The titles of his songs go from “(I Know I
Got) Skillz” to “Game Over” to “I Hate 2 Brag.” Besides filling out
the now-standard hip-hop cliches of misspelling, Shaq attempts to
show just how good he is. How? By comparing nearly everything in
life to basketball. And that joke runs cold after the tenth minute
of listening to it. “Do you want me to shoot it?/Do you want me to
pass it?/Do you want me to slam?” C’mon. While he’s supposed to
write about what he knows about, I’d hate to know that basketball
is the only thing there is on his life.
I’ll give him this much credit. He knows that he’s not the best
rapper around. So he asks fellow rappers Fu-Schnickens to guest
star in “What’s Up Doc? (Can We Rock).” The trade-offs are amusing
and the song is catchy. (Quick question though: Whatever happened
to
Fu-Schnickens???)
Shaq has gone on to make more albums and from what I’ve heard
and read, he has improved. That’s good. However, from this starting
point, you couldn’t have guessed it. I hope that he has learned to
incorporate more of his life into his music than just basketball.
After all, he may be out for a while and there has yet to be light
seen for the basketball season. (That’s another story.)