From Usain Bolt To Manny Pacquiao To Miles Bridges, 5 Professional Athletes That Successfully Made The Jump To Music

It's a common joke that artists want to be athletes and athletes want to be artists. But how often does the joke actually become a reality?

Becoming a professional athlete is an astronomical feat on its own, so diving back down to earth in hopes of becoming a successful artist is like betting on a fraction—of a fraction—of an already slim chance. Nevertheless, these five athletes hit the lottery twice by making a name for themselves in two dream professions.

Usain Bolt

The relationship between music and sports reads loud and clear for most. But in case some people need the connection explained in more detail, Usain Bolt does a pretty good job of breaking it down.

"We enjoy music as athletes. It helped hype us up or calm us down depending on the type of genre," the eight-time Olympic gold medalist told GRAMMY.com. "For the artists, it's all about the hype to come to a sporting event to watch athletes perform at a high level. For me I've really been into that from a young age."

Bolt understands the relationship between artists and athletes so well because he's served as both the world's fastest man and a DJ Khaled-like figure in the reggae, Afrobeats and dancehall spaces. Bolt released his album, Country Yutes, earlier this year, and similar to his track career, he has his eyes set on gold.

"I'm aiming for the top—a GRAMMY," Bolt told The Times UK.

Shaquille O'Neal aka DJ Diesel

For a second, close your eyes and imagine moshing with Shaquille O'Neal. (There's an Icy Hot joke in there somewhere!)

Most know Shaq as the bruising force that dominated on the court for nearly two decades, then seamlessly transitioned to television once his playing career wrapped. But hidden behind his legendary basketball career and larger-than-life on-air personality is another layer of Shaq that he's been honing for decades.

"I've been doing this since '88," Shaq told SiriusXM at Lollapalooza in 2019. "When I retired in 2011, I needed another adrenaline booster."

Shaq, the four-time NBA champion and mega basketball personality, has north of 20 million followers on Instagram. DJ DIESEL, on the other hand, sits at around 239k Instagram followers and is about as underground as a tank-topped 7-foot EDM DJ can be, but despite the difference in followings, Shaq says the two worlds are linked.

"No matter what you've got going on in life, it's two things that'll stop everything you're thinking about negatively," Shaq explained in 2019. "Sports and music."

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Damian Lillard aka Dame D.O.L.L.A.

"I think I rap better than Shaq. I've heard Shaq's stuff," Lillard said on an episode of The Joe Budden Podcast in 2019. "I think he was viewed as Shaq, though. People was like, this Shaq. It wasn't like Shaq and Biggie. People weren't looking like this is a real rapper."

Not only did the second and third names on this list successfully transition from court to stage, but they even exchanged surprisingly entertaining diss records at one another in 2019.

"This a different era, you the past and you the past," rapped Lillard in his Shaq diss titled "Reign Reign Go Away". "Said yourself that I'm a Tesla, no longer need diesel gas. Kinda like the Cavs ain't really need Diesel ass."

Evidenced by the nice flip of Shaq's nickname above and the four albums he's released since 2016, Dame D.O.L.L.A. has unlimited bars—much like Damian Lillard has boundless range.

Miles Bridges aka RTB MB

If Miles Bridges wasn't 6 feet, 7 inches tall, he would genuinely fit in as one of Michigan's many upcoming rap stars.

Unlike Shaquille O'Neal and Damian Lillard—who are megastars in the basketball world—the 23-year-old Charlotte Hornet is as overlooked on the court as he is off the court. Despite falling just short of the 10 players in NBA or WNBA history to record a 50-40-90 shooting season, the masses mostly turn a blind eye to Bridges, and as a result, RTB MB can rap as unfiltered as he wants.

"Put a couple dots on his head like a snap-back," raps RTB MB on "Steph McGrady".

It also doesn't hurt that Bridges' hometown of Flint, Michigan, is about an hour away from one of the hottest areas in rap right now.

"When I was 16, I was tryna make music like Drake," Bridges told The Ringer earlier this year. "My flow has changed tremendously. I started listening to Detroit music when I was 13 or 14. Doughboyz Cashout, Team Eastside, all those guys."

Manny Pacquiao

As the only eight-division world champion in boxing history, a senator of the Philippines, an actor in multiple films and a professional basketball player for 10 games, Manny Pacquiao is a man of many talents.

While music isn't his most obvious talent—who could say that about a man who's such a monster in the ring?—the four-time welterweight champion does sport impressive music accolades.

From charting on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart in 2011 to releasing two certified platinum albums in his home country the Philippines, Pacquiao reached heights as an artist that even full-time musicians would applaud.

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