At more than seven feet tall and over 300 pounds, Shaquille O’Neal has a hard time being stealthy. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as much of a shock that, when he piloted his pickup truck to the TomorrowWorld music festival in Georgia’s Chattahoochie Hills several years ago and slipped behind the pyrotechnics stand, promoter Joe Silberzweig immediately took notice.
“I come over this mountain, never seen this many people in my life,” Shaq recalls. “When I got up there, security wouldn't let me in, so I had to bogart my way in. And I parked behind the fireworks, and then Joe came down screaming.”
Silberzweig’s alarm quickly turned to glee as he recognized Shaq, inviting him into the festival as an honored guest. The NBA Hall of Famer — whose résumé also includes turns as an actor, rapper and law enforcer — was amazed to see hundreds of thousands of fans, some sporting flags of countries at war with one another, writhing in peaceful unison to each thumpy electronic set. At that moment, Shaq decided he was going to return to the stage as a DJ himself.
Flash forward to present day, and Shaq has created yet another career for himself, this time as a DJ. He’s in the midst of a 15-date tour dubbed Summer Of Shaq, with Silberzweig and colleague Adam Richman serving as his music managers. Although his earnings as a DJ aren’t enough to qualify him for our list of the world’s highest-paid electronic acts, he’s easily the biggest DJ in terms of physical stature (dwarfing even the towering Afrojack). Cash doesn't seem to be Shaq's primary consideration, anyway.
“I always tell people there are two things that bring people together: sports and music,” he explains before a gig at Atlantic City’s Ocean Resort HQ2 dayclub (where his hype man introduces him as “the biggest DJ in the world, literally.”) “For me, it’s not about the money. It’s about the record and the crowd and the Game 7 [atmosphere].”
Shaq isn’t just a casual celebrity DJ — he’s actually been plying his trade for most of his life. During his early adolescence, inspired by the old-school hip-hop turntablists he grew up listening to, he taught himself how to spin on a $200 setup he cobbled together after cutting grass and washing cars. He played gigs to earn extra cash throughout high school and college, taking a break in the 1990s to focus on his rap career but always keeping DJ equipment in his house.
After his TomorrowWorld experience, Shaq pestered Silberzweig for two years to let him DJ at the festival, finally getting a shot to play a small stage during an undesirable time slot early in the evening. Some 10,000 people showed up, and Shaq was on his way, trading the hip-hop beats of his youth for dubstep, trap and the occasional “'80s white boy classic” — and ditching LP players in favor of CDJs. Earlier this year he teamed up with Silberzweig to create Shaq’s Fun House, a music carnival that debuted at Miami Music Week.
“What's so interesting about the Fun House is that Shaquille's a partner, and it’s his event, and a lot of it is his vision,” says Silberzweig. Adds Shaq: “We started the Fun House because we wanted to bring all the top DJs in and just have fun. ... I had two cops, 5,000 people, no incidents.”
Sure enough, Shaq has been rubbing elbows with electronic cash kings like Diplo (who ranks No. 7 on this year’s list with $20 million in earnings). Shaq has played gigs in locales from the Bahamas to Beijing; in China, he drew crowds as big as 50,000. And now he’s thinking of putting out an album of original work.
While Shaq admits the performance fees he’s been getting pale in comparison to what he receives for endorsement deals — he shills for companies including Carnival Cruise Line, Gold Bond and The General car insurance — it seems his DJ gigs serve to keep him relevant to a younger generation, which should keep the bigger checks coming even if he never makes our list.
“I’m not trying to be the best DJ,” he says. “All I want to do is rock the crowd.”
That said, he can’t help winning over new fans. Shortly after Shaq’s gig at HQ2, a security guard noted that Diplo had recently played a show in Atlantic City. His analysis: “I like Shaq better.”
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