Rapper NLE Choppa’s new music video for his singles Champions dropped on Wednesday afternoon featuring American swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Michael Andrew. The video had over 50,000 views on YouTube in its first hour.
The video features a number of champion athletes, including
- two-time WNBA champion Jewel Lloyd,
- 15-time World Champion boxer Floyd Mayweather,
- high school regional football champions Fairley High School in Memphis,
- 2022 Super Bowl Champion Odell Beckham Jr,
- Collegiate basketball legend Nancy Liebermann,
- California girls’ basketball state champions Sierra Canyon,
- LSU women’s basketball NCAA Champions Angel Reese and Flau’ Jae Johnson,
- 15-time World Champion boxer Mike Tyson,
- NBA Champions Lebron James, Kyrie Irving, .
It also features champions from outside of the world of sports, including rapper David Sabastian, identified as “Skid Row Champion” because the proceeds of his Skid Row fashion line go to help families of the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, which has one of the largest homeless populations in the country, and Cornerstone Denver Prep Reward School, where students combined to read over 40 million words for the NLE Reading Champions.
It even includes the clothing line Champion.
The video opens with Andrew swimming butterfly in a pool and flexing wearing his Olympic gold medal alongside Choppa, with a later underwater scene of Choppa boxing in the pool.
Some behind-the-scenes shows Choppa and Andrew swimming together, with Choppa demonstrating a decent start off the blocks.
Choppa, from Memphis, Tennessee, has released two full-length studio albums, including Cottonwood 2 earlier this year. His single “Slut Me Out” in 2022 peaked at #4 on the US rap charts and #28 on the Billboard Hot 100. He has 7 platinum singles and an additional 5 gold singles.
His Spotify channel has over 22 million monthly listeners, with his most-listened to songs earning almost half-a-billion plays each. Across all platforms, his music has over 3 billion cumulative streams.
Andrew, who swam on the US Olympic gold medal winning and World Record breaking 400 medley relay at the Tokyo Games, has amassed a significant online following of his own: he has 195,000 Instagram followers, which ranks him 23rd-most among active swimmers.
This is great for swimming! NLE is reaching a community that swimming rarely does. Being an inspirational music video this may bring positive attention to the sport.
Looking at swimming as a sport historically, it definitely has had it struggles with accessibility, and attracting diverse community’s, and I think this video could reach and inspire those communities. I really think it’s great that swimming was involved in this video!
I believe this is great publicity for swimming, and reaches out to NLE’s community/supporters. The video could spotlight issue of lack of accessibility to minority, and underserved communities. The videos of NLE swimming could very possibly be very inspirational to many that might not be able to swim/ don’t know much about the sport of swimming, and I think that is his intent with this whole video and collab.
Ghosts -It sounds like coach Dick Fadgen at Memphis State in the background starting them…
I’m enjoying MA’s career development into less successful Ryan Lochte
Easy now, he’s had one off off season. Let’s wait for a WWMA series to flop before we start making unfair comparisons
Best comment ever
Yeah I’m fully expecting a reality show as a lead in to 2024. Actually I am demanding he makes this happen.
I’ve never heard of this rapper, but he’s got a better start than most of my masters swimmers and about half of my age groupers. Not bad!
150 IM Champion?
Yup
Ok but I kind of love this
Is MA the 2023 version of this? –