36 year-old Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O’Neal performed an amateur rap at a NY Club on Sunday in which he took pot shots at former LA Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant and suggested that Bryant was responsible for his divorce. The refrain for the song was “Kobe, tell me how my ass taste[s]” and the lyrics included a suggestion that Shaq may have cheated on his wife, Shaunie, with whom he filed for divorce last September. Shaq raps “I’m a horse, Kobe ratted me out, that’s why I’m getting divorced.”

TMZ reminds us that Bryant said in 2003 during his rape trial that he “Should have done what Shaq does … Shaq would pay his women not to say anything.” That was well before Shaq filed for divorce so Bryant must have done something else that he thinks sabotaged his marriage.

ESPN reminds us that the Lakers without Shaq lost the NBA Finals 4-2 to the Boston Celtics, which seems to be what Shaq is referring to when he says “last week Kobe couldn’t do without me.”

Here’s a transcript of Shaq’s rap if you can’t listen to the video above:

You know how I be, last week Kobe couldn’t do without me
I call myself big but I’m not as good as Biggie.
I call myself big because I live next to Diddy.
Excuse me, Diddy live next to me, so in the hood dog I feel like B I G
Because if Biggie was still here… [unintelligible]
It’s like a white boy trying to be more nigga than me…
It’s like Patrick Ewing having more rings than me..
It’s like Kareem saying to himself he’s better than me.
Now stop, think about that, it aint about that, it’s about B I G aka big Shaq
Now that’s the difference between first and last place
Kobe, nigga, tell me how my ass tastes
Ok, Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes
Ok everybody, Kobe, tell me how my ass taste
I’m a horse, Kobe ratted me out, that’s why I’m getting divorced
He said Shaq gave a bitch a meal
I don’t do that, because my name’s Shaquille
I love ’em, I don’t leave ’em.
I got a vasectomy, now I can’t breed ’em
Kobe how my ass taste?
Everybody, Kobe how my ass taste?
Kobe, you can’t do without me
Everybody, Kobe how my ass taste?

[Transcribed from video originally posted on TMZ and shown above]

I love how he says “I got a vasectomy, now I can’t breed ’em.” Shaq says he was just freestyling and that it was all meant in jest.

Reached by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Monday, O’Neal issued the following statement: “I was freestyling. That’s all. It was all done in fun. Nothing serious whatsoever. That is what MC’s do. They freestyle when called upon. I’m totally cool with Kobe. No issue at all. And by the way, don’t forget, six albums, two platinum, two gold. Anybody who knows me knows I’m a funny freestyler. Check the NBA DVD when I was rapping about Vlade Divac during my first championship run. Please tell everybody don’t make something out of nothing.”

O’Neal and Bryant do have a history of feuding, however, which started even before the Lakers split them up. Bryant bristled when O’Neal called him his “little brother.” At one point, Bryant questioned O’Neal’s conditioning.

Soon after being traded by the Lakers, O’Neal didn’t hide his disdain, calling Bryant a “clown” and a “joke.”

In recent years, however, the war of words has quieted, and O’Neal even went on record as saying that Bryant should have won the 2007 MVP award.

[From ESPN]

I totally forgot that Shaquille O’Neal had a rapping career in the early 90s. According to Wikipedia, he put out Shaq Diesel in 1993, which reached platinum status and was #10 on the Hip Hop chart, Shaq-Fu: Da Return in 1994, which went gold, You Can’t Stop the Reign in 1996, also gold, and Respect in 1998. He also had a greatest hits album, The Best of Shaquille O’Neal, which came out in 1996 along with music on the soundtracks of Kazaam and Steel. Do you this guy would not have a rap career if he wasn’t a basketball superstar?

Here’s You Can’t Stop the Reign from 1996. Most of his songs seem to center around how great and how rich he is: