WAVZE Top 5 Bangers Named After Football Players
Football players routinely use music as inspiration; hyping themselves up ahead of the match, to find those extra gears in training, or even aid with recovery. That slices both ways, with artists and songwriters taking inspiration from the dedication, talent and glory of their favourite ballers, either directly or in a more abstract way.
Here’s a few of our favourite examples of athletes being namechecked in the titles:
Dave x AJ Tracey - Thiago Silva
Dave and AJ Tracey combined for this classic in 2016, back when Thiago was still at PSG (hence the Parisien video flex!).
While Dave references Silva’s defending style with the line “...man block then skeet”, it’s arguably the bars about other players that land harder.
“...leave you in the States like Kaka”
“Kun Aguero, man dropped the shoulder feint once”
Of course who can forget this track led to a classic moment at Glastonbury!
Bill Shakes - Tugay Kerimoğlu
Blah Records stalwart and Blackburn legend draws on the mercurial, mind-bending skills of his team’s Player of the Year 2003-4, Tugay Kerimoğlu. Specifically the Turkish midfielder’s laconic, effortless ability to mug opposition with a wonder goal:
“Tugay Kerimoglu
I'm laid back when I'm robbing you”
Like Tugay, Bill sits right in the pocket of this rhythm, the ominous Lee Scott production perfectly complementing the darkly humorous bars.
“Hey, perdant magnifique, ouh, damn, j'suis Roberto Baggio
(J'suis Roberto Baggio)”
Belgian-Moroccan spitter JeanJass teams with French-Congolese rising star Youssoupha for this brooding, tongue in cheek tribute to Roberto Baggio with political undertones and introspective themes. JeanJass takes inspiration from Baggio as a ‘magnificent loser’, someone capable of excelling despite challenges and missteps (a reference to Roberto’s iconic penalty miss at the ‘94 World Cup).
When Arsenal announced the signing of Declan Rice on Twitter in 2023, it was with a video soundtracked by the eponymous banger by the Nigerian rapper and ‘Industry Machine’, ODUMODUBLVCK.
We love the wordplay here, with ODUMODUBLVCK using Rice’s hard hitting playing style as a metaphor:
‘Kwack them I dey feel like Declan Rice…
Anytime I come (Eh)
I go push them to the curb (Prra)
Smack them push them to the corner’
‘Rice’ does lyrical double-duty here, as a metaphor for the size of his squad:
‘Mеn just boku e be like thеm be rice (E be like them be Rice)’ - in other words, his team has so many members its like thousands of grains of rice.
Last but not least, a modern classic by the Londoner with Ivorian roots and the originator of the term ‘Afrowave’, Afro B.
An absolute anthem with a massive hook, the song performs the amazing feat of successfully combining storytelling about unrequited love with a shoutout to his favourite player:
‘Joanna your busy body
Busy tonight
Joanna
Make you no dey dull me tonight
Joanna your busy body giving me life, ooh
Hey life, eh….’
‘How you gonna play me like Drogba, oh, Drogba, oh
How you gonna do me like Drogba, oh, Drogba, oh
Ooh, ooh, ooh
Didier Drogba, oh, Drogba, oh
Eh, eh, eh
Didier Drogba, oh, Drogba, oh
Give it to them
Give it to them’