The lead spark plug of the frenetic hip-hop trio known as the Fu-Schnickens was being inundated by prank calls. Someone claiming to be NBA rookie phenomenon Shaquille O’Neal had been phoning. And phoning.

It was early summer of 1993. And Roderick “Chip Fu” Roachford was not amused.

This was the era of Juice, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Vibe, The Source, and Rap Pages. The end of the first chapter of Michael Jordan’s reign. This was Phat Farm and Cross Colours’ time. The era of Arrested Development, as well as Doggystyle and Don’t Sweat The Technique. Shaquille Rashaun O’Neal was the NBA’s Rookie of the Year.

The rowdy Fu-Schnickens were already gold-certified with their 1992 debut F.U. Don’t Take It Personal. In the process of recording their follow-up album during the late spring of ’93, they teamed up with the Orlando Magic’s speedy, slam-dunking, shot-blocking, backboard-crashing, Omega-stomping center for the gold single “What’s Up Doc? (Can We Rock).” And since then, the group had been caught up in the media hurricane known as S-H-A-Q.

Rookie O’Neal. By the end of his 19-year Hall of Fame career, the celebrated center would earn 15 All-Star selections, an MVP, and four championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat. In 2016, O’Neal is one of the NBA’s most vital ambassadors, a cranky analyst, and one of the most bankable pitchmen in sports. He’s a global celebrity and has accumulated a net worth of more than $400 million.

But in ’93? “Because of ‘Doc?’,” said Roachford with a laugh, “everybody was calling my house trying to imitate Shaq’s voice. So I hung up the phone, thinking it was another joke and the phone rings again and this voice says, ‘Yo, Chip, stop playing. It’s me, sir.’ That’s when I knew it was really Shaquille because he always said ‘sir.’ So we’re talking and he says, ‘I need you to help me write my album.’ I just stared at the phone like, Huh?”

Recorded over the summer and released Oct. 26, 1993, on the brink of his sophomore season, O’Neal’s Shaq Diesel (Jive Records) ended up defying naysayers by invading hip-hop and pop culture and selling more than a million copies. The album spawned two Top 40 singles, “What’s Up Doc? (Can We Rock)” and “(I Know I Got) Skillz,” three hit videos, and astonishment from music industry insiders not yet upended by the iPod and the internet and the confluence of professional basketball and hip-hop culture.

Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Deion Sanders, Chris Webber and Andre Rison are just some of the athletes who have tried to rock the mic. They stumbled. The Chicago Bears did hit gold with their 1985 novelty single, “Super Bowl Shuffle.” But O’Neal is the first and only professional athlete to make a credible mark on the music game.

That summer, though, the one after O’Neal concluded one of the best rookie seasons in NBA history — 23.4 points, 13.9 rebounds, 3.5 blocks per game — there was the matter of making his idea a reality. Just days after the phone call, a limo pulled up to the modest Brooklyn home of Roachford’s parents. O’Neal greeted a throng of shocked onlookers, and was soon sitting on the floor in Roachford’s bedroom. Not only did the self-proclaimed “rap fanatic” know rhymes, line for line, from much of LL Cool J, Rakim, and KRS-One’s catalogs, O’Neal also obsessively penned his own lyrics, and frequently freestyled with boyhood friends from Newark, New Jersey, high school buddies in San Antonio, and homies from his legendary run as a Louisiana State University Tiger. When it came to rhyming, O’Neal was a serious student: Forget Tony Danza/I’m the boss/When it comes to money, I’m like Dick DeVos, he spit on “What’s Up Doc?”: Now’s who’s the first pick? Me, word is born’in/Not Christian Laettner, not Alonzo Mourning/That’s OK, not being braggadocious/Supercalifragelisticshaq is alidoucious! This guy.

“If I was going to make an album,” says O’Neal, “it was going to have to be done right. And I realized I couldn’t carry an album by myself. My concept was always to rap with my favorite artists. It was never … about me trying to be a superstar rapper. It was just me as a young brother saying, You know what? My mama said I could fulfill all my dreams. Let me fulfill this dream as a rapper.”

Featuring a ragtag crew of emcees and producers, including Roachford and the Fu-Schnickens, A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Phife Dawg, EPMD’s Erick Sermon, Main Source’s Kevin “K-Cut” McKenzie, and Harlem’s own West Coast standout Jeffrey “Def Jef” Fortson, Shaq Diesel enjoyed crossover success at a time when rap still placed third behind R&B and the last days of rock. Going platinum in the early ’90s was not the norm in hip-hop — rap’s commercial renaissance, headlined by Ice Cube, Death Row Records, Bad Boy, the Wu-Tang Clan, Cypress Hill and Organized Noize, was just starting to heat up. But O’Neal — Shaq-Fu, as he was known for a brief and shining moment — pulled it off with his famous and disarming charm.

Everyone quoted is identified by the titles they held during the Shaq Diesel era.