Shaquille O'Neil AKA DJ Diesel at Myth Live: The Night Our Inbox Turned Into a Side Quest
Myth Live, Maplewood, MN — December 13, 2025
Big shout out to Jake Bonios from Medium Rare for the clear communication and making things run smooth all night!
Side Quest Unlocked
With two extra tickets, a quick “who’s in?” text blast, and the comfortable confidence that DJ Diesel never shows up to not destroy the room, Friday morning started like the kind of low-stakes mission you do half-asleep.
I was already drafting names in my head — clipboard energy, casual — when The Myth dropped that second email and turned “going to a show” into “you’re on the clock.”
Acquire Better Camera.
Assemble Crew.
Don’t Fumble Legendary Opportunity.
So I hit up Ben Glanzer — one of my best friends and a killer contributor for us — to see if I could borrow the nice camera, because suddenly we weren’t just attending. We had photo access. We had responsibility. We had the kind of opportunity that doesn’t politely reappear if you blink through it.
Next thing I know, Jeremy and I are standing outside The Myth again, 2,900 days since the last time we were here together for Die Antwoord. Yet, somehow we leveled up into working a show for Shaq. What made it even better this time was my wife working by my side. Life’s weird like that. Somewhere, the universe is grinning, and I swear I can hear Kazaam whispering, “When the magic is over, we ain’t men… we genies.” If only Aaron Carter could see me now.
Patch Notes: Myth, then vs now
When we got to the venue, the staff was great. They showed us around, got us the lay of the venue, and helped us lock in the plan for the night the same way the Myth Live venue team should: clear, organized, ready.
And I want to say this plainly because it matters. The Myth felt better run than the last time we were there.
Last time Jeremy and I were at The Myth together for Die Antwoord, the night felt more chaotic. Not just “wild show chaos,” but operational chaos. This time around, with the new owner and staff changes since then, it felt like an improvement. The flow was smoother. The communication was cleaner. Before, the whole place felt more like it was improvising survival. Now, it felt more like it was running a system.
That difference is everything when you’re there as an official press team. It’s hard to make art out of coverage when you’re also fighting the venue’s gravity. This night didn’t fight us. It guided us.
Rulo: local opener, global imagination
Before the show really started, after her soundcheck, we got to talk with Rulo (Val Ebertz) — a local addition to the lineup — and the conversation gave me the best kind of context: the kind you can hear in a set.
She told us the Cities’ scene is bass heavy. She started as open format, got into house. Latin house became a niche, but she didn’t want to be confined to one genre. She’s done drum and bass. She’s been performing two years this month. No albums or EPs yet. Just momentum.
Her recent inspiration is watching artists dip into different genres without asking permission. She mentioned Rosalía doing classical/opera-type swings, which is an unexpected but killer bold reference. Her dream collab would be Fred again.. which was funny because we’d literally listened to his new “ICEY..FEISTY” tracks on the drive up.
She’s played a lot of breweries, and Union type rooms. But this was her biggest venue yet. Her dream festival? Argentina Lollapalooza.
Then she went on and proved she wasn’t just talking. Rulo’s set was great because it had shape. She brought the energy up and down so the drops actually mattered. And you could hear the genre-curiosity in real time. She didn’t lean on one signature sound like a crutch. It was a mix. It breathed. It took risks.
It honestly felt like multiple festival worlds stitched into one set without turning into a mess — like Lost Lands aggression and Forest weirdness had a peaceful, temporary alliance. And that’s the whole thing with openers: you don’t need them to be finished. You need them to be alive. She was alive up there.
The climb: Muerte b2b Sqishi, then LAYZ
Next up was Muerte b2b Sqishi and they did their job well: bring the energy up and hold it there in anticipation for DJ Diesel.
They came in hot with heavy bass, smacking the crowd right off the bat. Stage presence was on point, and a huge part of the vibe was the visuals: coffins everywhere, like the room had been temporarily converted into a rave-haunted house.
Personally, I like it when groups show a little more level — bringing it up and down — because the peaks feel sharper when you’ve let the room dip for a second.
They worked in a Kesha remix (pure gremlin joy), touched Daft Punk like a little neon wink, and they ended on “Like a G6,” which felt like tossing a guilty-pleasure grenade into a crowd that was already smiling through bass-face.
They matched what we have come to expect from DJ Diesel crowds: high output, no hesitation, and a room that came to be pushed. They picked good songs to mix with, and they kept the needle glued to redline.
Then came one of our favorites: LAYZ. We’ve seen her multiple times and she always hits well. She has variance and flow. Even when the set is heavy, she knows how to move through different textures without losing the room. She was the perfect tier to be right before the headliner. She started with hard hitters, then instantly caught the whole crowd with her “Everytime We Touch” rendition — nostalgia bait, but weaponized — and it kicked off a mini mosh that felt like the balcony itself started bouncing in approval.
As always, her set was great. And the way her hair whipped around as she let the music move her was honestly aesthetically pleasing. Not staged. Not posed. Just pure kinetic release — like her body was translating the beat into something visual. That’s the difference between a DJ “playing” and a DJ living inside the sound.
DJ Diesel: the world’s biggest DJ
Last and definitely not least, standing at 7’1” tall as the world’s biggest DJ, out walked Shaq — DJ Diesel in the music world now — headlining the exact night the Myth Live event page promised he would.
This is the moment the crowd shifts from party mode into event mode. Because Diesel doesn’t show up to casually do anything. You can feel the room expecting impact, and he walks in like he’s there to deliver it.
He brought people up on stage showing his loyalty to his fans. One guy in the crowd claimed he was in the same fraternity as Shaq and brought him a pocket watch. Another gentleman asked if his wife — who just got her master’s degree — could come on stage. It was like a human petition wall forming in real time.
We were extra excited because he’d just announced his Texas-sized next chapter: SHAQ’s Bass All-Stars Festival in Dallas/Ft Worth on March 21, 2026. And he’d also popped up on the official Electric Forest 2026 lineup poster for June 25–28 in Rothbury, Michigan, listed for a DJ DIESEL B2B set with T-Pain.
That’s an unexpected team up announcement. The kind that makes you laugh because reality sounds like it’s lying.
Tonight the bass wasn’t just loud. It was physical. It was crowd-leveling. It was the kind of low-end that doesn’t just fill your ears, it occupies space.
Getting onstage with Shaq was surreal. Full stop. Being up there with my best friend Jeremy Todd Mercier, my wife Hope Hoffie, and Shaq was perfection. Almost like the world briefly decided to be cinematic on purpose.
But the weirdest part was what happened after. I couldn’t stop thinking, what can I offer beyond the press work he already blessed us with?
The real afterparty: the edit cave, the Dropbox, the beat in my head
After the show it was another four-hour drive home, followed by almost 48 straight hours going through nearly 5,000 photos and over 100GB of 4K 120fps video we took for his team.
After which, we weeded down to around 500 of the best photos from the show — covering all five artists — and the video got clipped and edited into usable promo clips.
It was a lot. But when DJ Diesel’s team tells you to get as much as you can… that is exactly what you do.
And after sending off 100GB+ of edited show coverage, I finally relaxed… and realized something that made me laugh because it’s been true forever:
Shaquille O’Neal has basically inspired me my whole life.
Lakers era. Kazaam. Shaq Fu. And now, somehow, his music career as DJ Diesel is part of the same thread.
So I included something personal in our Dropbox delivery: a beat I’d been building in my head that felt right for his bass world - especially with him heading toward SHAQ’s Bass All-Stars.
If I don’t hear back, I’ll drop the track next year. But I hope one day I get to hear it the way I imagine it — him remixing and performing it, in a room full of people who came to feel the music in their ribs.
Afterglow
This week the coverage started with “no photo passes” and ended with us delivering an entire vault of coverage to Shaq’s team.
It started like a normal gig and turned into a mission. It gave me a reminder I didn’t know I needed. That opportunities don’t always knock — they sometimes kick the door in and tell you to bring your gear.
This was one was wild definitely the most work we have ever done in such a short amount of time for sure!