Women’s sport has the world’s attention. It’s making more noise. Its supporters are getting louder. The drumbeat of excitement is building.
And no sport has more noise around it right now than women’s football.
The crowds and cheers are building. Soon, we’ll be hearing the sounds of sheer joy, of hope, of despair, of winning, of drawing, of losing, of overtime, of suspense, of hard work, of relief, of whistles, of high-fives. The thud of boot on ball. The impact and echo as the ball hits the back of the net.
The rhythms and rhymes of women’s football are magic, but they’re also musical.
And the connections between sport and music are longstanding. From the club songs streaming out of the lungs and mouths of young players at local football pitches, to the tracks our professional players listen to to train, get hyped up, decompress and celebrate – the musical connection has always been there.
But what if you could actually make a track by sampling the sounds of football?
adidas wanted to put it to the test to find out, so called on three skilled Australian performers and collaborators – professional footballer Caitlin Foord, singer-songwriter-producer Mallrat, and rapper Kwame.
Foord, who has been playing football since she was nine, took to the field to do some of her training drills. Mallrat then sampled the audio and followed its natural rhythms. From there, she chopped it up, slowed it down, created chords and found moments to partner with her voice.
“Creating a song using football sounds was a really fun challenge,” Mallrat says. “I think it’s just cool to be able to draw from a context that’s not my own, like sport, and then kind of give it a new environment and a new perspective,” she adds.
“When turning Caitlin’s audio into drum patterns, I found it really interesting that there was such a distinct natural rhythm and tempo to her drills. They were all naturally around 120 BPM. I later learned that she listens to a lot of house music when she trains, and that made a lot of sense because house music generally sits at around 120 BPM.”
Then, Kwame came in and did his thing.
The rapper says he loved collaborating with Mallrat to make the track, which brings the two worlds of sport and music together.
“Music is a universal language. I love that through sound, emotion and feel we can connect with one another in support of women’s football,” he says.
Foord, meanwhile, knows the power and importance of teamwork, music and collaboration as she prepares to take to the field for one of the biggest moments of her career.
“If I could play with music, I would. I just feel like it gives you something more to want to keep going, to go a little bit harder, a little bit quicker,” she says.
When she’s on the field though, she has the most important thing: “A team sport is all about working together. To be a part of that, it means everything to me.”
Now, fans of both football and music can watch Foord play, and hear the sounds of her artistry mixed with Mallrat and Kwame’s collaboration. It’s a song you’ll play until you can’t look away.
You can watch how the song came together here:
You can hear the brand new track “Forums” by Mallrat (Feat. Kwame) below:
