Shaquille O’Neal Butterflies, Willie Bounces And Bogle Dances To Popcaan’s ‘Be Like Me’
American basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, showed off his ‘Jamaicanness’ on the weekend to welcome the New Year, doing the Bogle, Willie Bounce and Butterfly dance moves to Dancehall star Popcaan’s Be Like Me song, in a video on his Instagram page.
“PopStepping into 2021 like Boo ya kah boo ya kah rewind selector come now,” O’Neal captioned the post in a Patois-writing attempt.
There was a flurry of comments from Jamaicans who identified the song and tagged the Unruly Boss to notify him of the antics of the basketballer, who had even added special effects to the video, in which he was obviously enjoying himself.
Be Like Me, released in 2013, appeared on the Decibels riddim.
An amused Popcaan, in response, posted his favourite slang: “Chubble” under Shaq’s video, as well as four laughing emoticons. His Dancehall colleague Dre Island also showed up and also posted a series of laughing emoticons.
Shaq’s attempt at humour though, comes as no surprise, as since retiring from competitive basketball, he has immersed himself into acting and stand-up comedy, and shares funny videos of himself to entertain his more than 18 million fans on Instagram.
One amused fan branded the icon ‘Shaqqa Ranks’, while others said it was obvious the basketball star had some form of Jamaican connection.
“Shaq got some yardie in him,” one follower, c4chev said.
O’Neal really does have bragging rights to things Jamaican, having being raised by Jamaican stepfather Phillip Harrison, who served as a solder in the U.S. Army. Harrison who married Shaq’s mother and also nurtured him and grew him as his own son.
According to an amomamma.com, Harrison, a drill sergeant raised Shaq as his flesh and blood from the age of two, “became his father, teaching him to tie his shoes, brush his teeth and play the pivot”.
The article described Harrison as being a disciplinarian who, when Shaq got older and dabbled in being a juvenile delinquent, “used his belt and fists on him” while noting that his own “Jamaican father beat him worse”.
Harrison had explained later that the real reason he said he hit Shaquille was because he did not want him to grow up to become “a young Phillip Harrison, the school-ditchin’, card-playin’, skirt-chasin’ gangster, who knew that if he didn’t leave his crazy Newark life and join the military, he’d be another statistic”.
Jamaican family connection aside, this is not the first time that the basketball legend has endorsed a Jamaican artiste or showed his appreciation of dance moves from the island.
In November 2015 O’Neal photoshopped his head on the body of Renae 6:30 as she danced to Don Andre’s explicit single Needle Eye, making the two Jamaicans the rage on social media, according to The Star tabloid.
“The video which was later uploaded on popular US Website WorldStarhiphop.com sees Renae 6:30 performing a split along with other acrobatic moves. However, her head is replaced with that of a smiling Shaquille O’Neal,” The Star noted.
At the time Don Andre said he was not only overwhelmed to see his music “reaching new nations and breaking into other cultures, and was grateful for the publicity due to Shaquille’s huge audience.
“I am very, very, very grateful for Shaq’s endorsement because not a lot of dancehall artistes get a chance to be on that platform you can’t pay for that. That’s what we are all working for… for dancehall music to be recognised on the mainstream by celebrities all over the world,” he told The Star at the time.
An elated Renae 6:30 also told the tabloid that she was overwhelmed at Shaq’s endorsement, but was also motivated to “put out more work and set more records for dancing in Jamaica”.
“For a big star like Shaq to put up the video that is a great accomplishment, just like when Rihanna did the ‘Puppy Tail’ dance move, which I created. I found Shaq’s video very funny, and a lot of other famous people shared it following his post…,” she said back then.