If you take a count on the amount of punchable pointed lines, the score is 10 to 14 in the favor of Shaq. What clarified a punchline here was a line that made a direct insult or took a direct shot at the contending party or something about the contending party.
Shaq has a more traditional approach, where his lines tend to start and stop symbiotically with the loop, or where one repetitive part of the beat stops and starts again. While Dame’s style is a bit more intricate, his lines that included multiple sequences of lyrics were split if they changed cadence or rhyme scheme, but otherwise counted as one.
You would give Dame a ton of credit for his wittiness, wordplay, and ability to effectively bring a lot of cultural Shaq references from sports and pop culture into the fold, such as the usage of Kazaam, Steel, and the mere title itself (Reign Reign Go Away), which references a track Shaq did with Biggie Smalls. You also have to give Shaq credit too though for his ability to make historical and actual references, illustrate his bravado and big personality via lyric, and loop in a ton of basketball facts, such as his forgetful line about being an owner of the Sacramento Kings or his reference to Oakland originating NBA ballers from his era.
While I will admit that doing the research for this piece left me more impressed with Dame’s track, that doesn’t change the opinion. The standoff is about even as of now, needing one more round of tracks to declare a winner if the ultimate goal is to declare a winner here.
The fact remains still that they are both good records, although Dame’s is a little more kind to the style and sound of hip-hop that we enjoy today and as mentioned earlier. Hopefully, they aren’t done and Shaq feels the need to respond to Dame’s track. We’ll be here waiting for it to happen.