Football and culture are deeply rooted in each other. This can be seen not only in the extent to which soccer determines everyday life for many people, but also in the way it is present in various parts of pop culture.
In rap music in particular, references to footballers and soccer clubs are commonplace. We took this as an opportunity to take a closer look at a large number of songs by the best-known German rappers.
We analyzed which soccer clubs and players are mentioned most frequently and how often the topic of gambling is referenced. With the help of the Genius.com API, we viewed and rated 23,435 songs from 98 rappers:
German rap soccer: FC Bayern will win this title after all
After the past season, FC Bayern can still claim a title for itself – but has to share it with FC St. Pauli. The two clubs are mentioned most frequently in German rap songs. They each have 70 songs that mention their respective clubs.
Among other things, Bayern are mentioned very creatively in the song “häng” by Ski Aggu – “Gleisdreieck, Parkbank, bin anders am reihern, Du siehst ein’n King koman auf der Bank wie bei Bayern, ah”.
Perhaps it comes as a surprise to see FC St. Pauli so far ahead. But that’s because many well-known rappers come from the Hanseatic city – including Bonez MC, Gzuz, Jan Delay and Disarstar, who have all mentioned St. Pauli in one or more songs at some point in their discography.
In third place comes FC Barcelona, which is mentioned in 39 of the songs analyzed. Eintracht Frankfurt and Real Madrid also enjoy a high profile in the German rap scene and are often used as symbols of success and excellence in song lyrics
German rap settles GOAT debate
Not only clubs but also footballers are often cited. It’s no surprise who tops the list here. One of the best footballers of all time, Diego Maradona, who is named in a total of 55 different songs. But not only soccer legends, but also current players are sung about.
Our analysis could also settle the debate about who the real GOAT is: Messi is in second place with 53 mentions, while Ronaldo is in fourth place with 44. Both players, with their extraordinary careers and numerous records, are often used as symbols of success and hard work in the songs.
The first German player to make the top 10 list is Mesut Özil, who can be found in Alte Turnhalle by Max Herre, Ali Neumann, Monchi and Afrob, among others:
“(Angst) A mother comforts her son
And it sticks to my back, my Özil jersey
They rattle the fences, a window breaks
A smoke alarm goes off, God, where does my escape end “
Of course, the one often comes with the other. In his song “BAYERN FREESTYLE”, Shindy raps about various attributes of the Bavarian Free State and doesn’t skimp on references to former footballers and players.
Including Lothar Matthäus, Giovane Élber – and FC Bayern Munich:
“My money is green-yellow like a corn plantation
I mostly hang around Munich like the championship trophy”
…
“Your detached house here is a doghouse
OG, G.O.A.T. status – Rummenigge “
Gambling terms in German rap
We already analyzed the occurrence of gambling terms in German rap songs three years ago, and you can read the article online here.
We have conducted this research again. Still a popular topic in the music genre, the list is still headed by Olexesh. A full 19% of his lyrics contain references to gambling.
The word that appears most frequently in songs is “poker” – it is mentioned in a total of 376 different songs.
Methodology
The lyrics were extracted with the help of Genius.com. Using a list of 98 German rappers, the lyrics for all available songs on Genius.com for these artists were retrieved. A total of 23,435 songs were searched and their lyrics collected for analysis.
The collected data, which was available in JSON and CSV format, was then consolidated into a single DataFrame. The song lyrics were cleaned to ensure that the data was ready for subsequent analysis.
In the third step, internal machine learning algorithms and the OpenAI API were used to analyze the lyrics. The AI was used to extract song topics and identify mentions of soccer players and clubs based on the lyrics provided.
Finally, the results of the ML analysis were examined in detail in the fourth step. This involved analyzing which song topics are referenced most frequently in German rap, which soccer players and clubs are mentioned most often and which casino terms occur particularly frequently.
It was also determined which artists use the most casino-related terms and which topics the individual artists rap about in their songs.
