Champion Flow: the album for your sports summer

With Champion Flow, our local label Berlin Production Music brings you one banger after another for your sports productions – straight from the current German music scene.

We spoke to three of the artists and songwriters involved and asked them what motivated them to be part of this album.

What motivated you to create a track for the album? Are you a big football/soccer fan? What’s your personal connection to sport?

Zentigold: As a passionate and successful amateur athlete with two left feet, I love sports – especially third-division football, fitness and running.

Yasha Pyjama: Sport was never really my main passion, but it has always been part of my life. When I was young, I naturally played football for a club – like every boy in my neighbourhood. I have fond memories of watching and playing football with my siblings and my father. That’s what motivated me to write a song that encourages people to do their own thing and go for it.

Greckoe: Sport has always been a fixed part of my life. I played actively for years myself and I’m still very connected to sports today. That energy, that focus, that moment right before competition – it has always fascinated me. And ever since I was young, I’ve been just as fascinated by the music that accompanies sport. When I saw a Nike or Adidas ad as a teenager, with that one perfect track underneath it, I always thought: I want to do that one day. For me, this project was the chance to make exactly that happen – to create music that fires people up in those moments.

Did you already have specific sports scenes in mind when you wrote the track?

G: Definitely. When I was writing, I wasn’t thinking about one specific sport, but about a feeling. That moment when someone gives everything. Last second, packed stadium, everything on the line. I wanted to capture that universal intensity in my track – whether it’s on the pitch, on the court or in the arena.

Z: I’m in football stadiums so often that pyro visuals feel almost normal to me: the smell, the colours, the fire – all of that is part of the wildness of the game. And Zidane’s headbutt on Materazzi... I’m still angry about the red card!

YP: When I wrote my song, I was in Tenerife surfing and hiking.

What was it like recording a song in German that still has to work internationally?

Z: I actually tried to use every anglicism I know. Turns out: there were only three. I believe that every listener can feel what you honestly project – which is why I shouted a lot, for example.

YP: I simply made sure that the lyrics and the flow were melodic, and that I didn’t get too lost in the details of the lyrics.

G: That was actually an interesting challenge. German is very direct, very grounded, which works well for sport. But I made sure that the energy and the groove would also come across without understanding the language. Music has to feel physical before you understand the words. When that works, a track can also connect internationally.

What would be a dream placement for your track?

YP: A real dream placement would be for the song to be used in the biography of an inspiring person.

Z: I’d be into anything, even curling – the audio-visual contrast would be funny. But ideally, of course, it would be on Sportschau or at the World Cup title celebration, when Nick Woltemade and Deniz Undav are taking trophy photos with Beyoncé and Zara Larsson.

G: A major sports magazine intro, a Champions League recap, a Nike campaign spot. Ideally all of the above. But honestly, if the track plays somewhere and pushes someone in the exact moment they need it most – in the gym, in the tunnel before a match, on the final kilometre – then it’s done its job.