Shaq Diesel, Brianna

In the world of celebrities, you often see those in the spotlight get bored of their particular brand and try out some other avenue of entertainment. Popstar to actress, actor to painter, athlete to rap artist. Perhaps I'm wrong in assuming boredom is related to such switches, but at the very least, these folks are usually pretty established in their first role before attempting other avenues. 

So that was one thing surprising about this week's look into Shaq Diesel, recorded during the same year of the big guy's rookie season. The other surprise was that it wasn't the bass aggressive EDM album I had presumed it was when picking it at the start of summer. Thankfully, I wasn't necessarily looking forward to such an album, having only picked it to move past the weird experience I had with DJ Diesel at Bonnaroo. Alas, the story of watching a guy get narcanned to the tune of Shaq yelling "ladies mosh pit!!!" is for another day. Anyway, all that to say I had a fun first listen. 

After that, it all kind of starts to blend together. The beats that were fun on their own start to feel like small variations of each other. While I respect the quintessential '90s rap whistle effect that opens "(I Know I Got) Skillz" and "I'm Outstanding," did we really need it in two b2b tracks that discuss how awesome Shaq is? Their early place in the tracklist was forgiving and I didn't dislike them, but I was definitely bored of their similar sounding follow-ups by the end. 

Leading up to the ill-fated set on the Farm that year, I watched a couple interviews with Shaq talking about his musical career. He explained that from rap to EDM, his motivation in the music industry had been consistent: have fun. Listening to the album, I see it. You can say what you want about his ability to write bars or the repetitive backing tracks, but you can't say the man didn't have fun. Me? Not as much. And for that, I'll add a song or two to a '90s playlist and move on. 

A final thought: I bet that guy next to me at Roo was grateful he went to down to Shaq's calls for feminism in the mosh pit instead of "dookie diarrhea coming out your butt." So at least the man's matured over the years!!