Shaquille O'Neal is a pop culture icon. He's a Hall of Fame basketball player, a colorful personality, and a fixture in commercials. One thing he is not is a great rapper. Shaq's celebrity status allowed him to drop several albums in the 1990s. Some of the songs are decent due to production or guest verses, but it was clear Shaquille O'Neal was no wordsmith. That being said, there's something fascinating about hearing the athlete dig back in the time machine and pull out a collaboration of this magnitude. "No Love Lost" was originally recorded in 1996, which means his features, Nas and Jay-Z, were at creative peaks.
Boy, does it show. "No Love Lost" has a solid instrumental. Nothing face-scrunch-ingly good, but it allows plenty of room for the rappers to do their thing. Shaquille O'Neal goes first and handles the chorus. He's pretty good, all things considered. He has a few clunkers, but he had the good sense to get out of the way and let the masters go to work. Nas was killing every track he got on in the mid-90s, and "No Love Lost" is no different. His flow is impeccable, and his wordplay is razor sharp. He walks away with the best verse, which is saying a lot considering Reasonable Doubt-era Jay-Z follows him. Hov is great, even if he does still have the Jaz-O influence that he would minimize from his second album on. Old school hip-hop fans are going to love this, plain and simple.
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Nas Steals This Classic Song From Shaquille O'Neal And Hov
Quotable Lyrics:
Fo' sho', everything's for dough now
The flow, y'all gotta pay a little mo' now
It's platinum, nowadays we put the gold down
We stepped it up, y'all don't ever wanna showdown
