LeBron James And Jay-Z’s Beef With DeShawn Stevenson, Recounted By Too $hort

Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James probably still hears those naysayers that say he’s overrated, probably. However, none of those naysayers are as memorable as DeShawn Stevenson.

Remember that time when DeShawn Stevenson tried to tell a young LeBron James, who was in his fourth season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, that he was overrated?

A couple of days ago, Brandon Robinson, managing editor and columnist of RESPECT Magazine and host of the podcast, Scoop B Radio, corresponded with me directly and we discussed just that.

This was the discussion because rapper Too $hort appeared on the Scoop B Radio Podcast with Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson on Sunday morning. For those that don’t know, Scoop B Radio has been featured in Billboard, Forbes, USA Today, XXL, CBS, Complex, The Score, Fox Sports, Yahoo Sports and more. In the interview, Too $hort and radio host Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson go back down memory lane: the 2008 NBA playoff series between the Washington Wizards and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

In that series, James and DeShawn Stevenson were going back and forth and at the apex of their beef, Stevenson called James overrated.

OVERRATED.

(For the record, James averaged 29.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.7 assists per game as the Cavs knocked the Washington Wizards out of the playoffs in six games in the first round. The previous season, the Cavs swept the Wizards in the first round, just a year after beating the Wizards in six games in the first round in 2006).

After Stevenson called James overrated, James quipped with a statement saying that responding to Stevenson would be like Jay-Z responding to Soulja Boy. Jay-Z, a good friend of James, then dropped a diss track targeted towards Stevenson and sampled a Too $hort instrumental and chorus from “Blow The Whistle”.

In the interview radio host “Scoop B”, Too $hort discussed Jay-Z’s request to sample his 1995 hit Blow The Whistle.

In the song, Jay-Z said:

"“Ask my [expletive] LeBron! We so big we ain’t gotta respond. When you talkin to a don, please have respect like you’re talking to your mom. We let the money do the talkin. As you see we be talkin rather often. The ROC Boys in the buildin. Another hundred fifty million don’t it sound like we yellin?!!! Who the [expletive] overrated?! If anything they underpaid him. Hatin that’s only ‘gonna make him spend the night out of spite with the chick you’ve been datin. We the best of the best. We ‘gon be here so the rest could take a rest, I gotta get this off my chest, No pause none of that [expletive], get off my [expletive]”"

In their interview, Too $hort said that he believed that Jay-Z dropping that track was a play to recruit LeBron to come to the Brooklyn Nets when he became a free agent.

According to Too $hort, Jay-Z decided to play the song in Oakland. Below is his account:

"“I didn’t come on stage but he played it and like sent me a shout out and the crowd went crazy when he played the song.”“So I guess in his mind he was gearing up to, at that point I think he was thinking about signing LeBron and having him play for the Nets and he was courting LeBron and LeBron was special to him and ‘ol boy [Stevenson] stepped on LeBron’s toes talking shit and Jay was like I’m going to shut this down. And he probably saw the moment where the crowd reacted to the song and then that was on his mind.”"

He also recounted how Jay-Z called him and asked for his blessing in requesting the Blow The Whistle beat:

"“He was like: ‘could you send me the instrumental to that?’ If a rapper called me and said: ‘send me the instrumental,’ I’ll probably say something like: ‘we didn’t even bounce the instrumental, so we don’t even have one.’ When Jay called, I was like: ‘ it will be there in a couple of hours man.’ I had no idea what he was going to do with it, but I am glad he did.”"

We are too, $hort.

For those who want to know, Stevenson has since backtracked on his comments that James is overrated.

According to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, in a story written in 2011, “Stevenson now acknowledges that his animosity toward LeBron stemmed from the Cavs repeatedly eliminating the Wizards. He refers to James as an “MVP-type of player” and says LeBron is either the best in the league or right behind Kobe Bryant”.

In 2011, that was the general consensus anyways. Now, James is the best player in the league but there are those who are trying to take his throne in the way he took the throne from Bryant.

Oh yeah, and don’t let Stevenson tell you anything different now. Here’s a tweet he sent out in 2013, after all the hoopla about James being overrated.

Come on DeShawn, that’s like Soulja Boy asking to be a feature on a Jay-Z song.

Related Story: 23 Reasons Why LeBron Is Better Than Jordan

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