Nas, Snoop Pick Sides in Shaq/Kobe Rap Battle

Shaquille O' Neal's hilarious Kobe Bryant-trashing freestyle at a New York club on Sunday night has escalated into a proper rap beef. First, the former Los Angeles Lakers center/Fu'Schnicken guest was asked to turn in his Sheriff's badge — Shaq Diesel volunteers as a police officer during the off-season — for using vulgar language, including the now-infamous "Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes." The freestyle also had after shocks in the hip-hop community, with rappers quickly taking sides. Nas joined Team Shaq, saying "Shaq is my man, fuck Kobe." Even Snoop Dogg calls the new Shaq/Kobe feud "beautiful," hoping the fight would lead to a better rivalry on the court. Snoop, despite being a Lakers fan, said he wouldn't write some comeback verses for Kobe because he "couldn't disrespect Shaq." He did offer to help find Kobe someone who would, however. Bryant, who made his own rap album that was supposedly so terrible it was buried for good, has yet to formally respond to O'Neal's verses.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter