Bukayo Saka? Eddie Nketiah? Ashley Young?!?! Speculation about which Premier League star is living a double life as one of the UK's most exciting emerging new artists is rife, but have internet sleuths correctly identified the player by his tattoos?
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00:00 It's probably the greatest bit of marketing in the recent history of British music.
00:08 A new rapper bursts onto the scene, rumours fly around that he's actually a Premier League
00:12 footballer, his lyrics are loaded with clues about his identity, but crucially, he constantly
00:17 conceals his face with a mask and never reveals his name.
00:20 Ladies and gentlemen, this is D-Day.
00:24 Two months ago, a track entitled "Intro Freestyle" was the first video uploaded to a newly created
00:28 YouTube channel.
00:30 As well as including a number of veiled and not-so-veiled references to his life as a
00:33 footballer within the lyrics, an accompanying website also went live where he directly claimed
00:38 to be playing in the Premier League.
00:40 The football pitch and the actual football branding being slightly more on the nose.
00:44 Since then, D-Day has released a full single and music video, Thrill, another freestyle,
00:49 Smoke and Havoc, and the internet has frantically played the masked singer trying to pin the
00:53 clues to several footballers.
00:55 So who are the most likely candidates to be a Premier League footballer secretly living
00:59 a double life as an emerging rapper?
01:02 The name at the front of the queue is currently Eddie Nketiah.
01:05 Despite his name almost being an exact anagram of D-Day, you just sort of, you take the other
01:10 D and you move it around and it kind of works, there are also several other components that
01:14 seem to line up perfectly.
01:15 There's a reference to his age being 23, which checks out, a claim that he recently signed
01:20 a new contract to put him into the seven-figure bracket, which Nketiah did for Arsenal last
01:24 year, and some coded lyrics about having the option to go down a different path or sit
01:29 on the bench and, well, yep, there he is.
01:32 Most compelling of all though is the prominent imagery of South London in the background
01:35 of his video.
01:36 Nketiah is, very proudly, from the Lewisham Borough of South London, and the Bermondsey
01:40 area some 15 minutes down the road, features in the majority of the Thrill video.
01:45 Finally, even aside from just the strong South London accent, people just think his voice
01:49 sounds similar, which would, admittedly, be a pretty big giveaway.
01:53 However, his isn't the only name in the frame, and it isn't even the only one from
01:57 the current Arsenal squad.
01:58 Third favourite with the bookies right now, and yes, you can actually bet on this, is
02:02 Pikaio Saka.
02:04 Primarily because, again, of the perceived similarities between his voice and that of
02:08 D-Day, Saka also ticks a lot of the same boxes laid out in the clues as Eddie and Nketiah.
02:13 However, he's still only 21 and not 23, signed his big contract a number of years
02:18 ago, hasn't really had to go through a prolonged period of sitting on the bench, and grew up
02:22 in Ealing in West London as opposed to Lewisham in the South.
02:26 Another thing working against him is just the unshakable feeling amongst Arsenal fans
02:30 especially that Pikaio Saka just doesn't seem like the type of person to have a secret
02:35 rap career.
02:36 Seemingly shy, mild-mannered and fully focused on his football, the idea that he also has
02:40 a secret persona that spits absolute bars on a number of controversial topics in his
02:44 downtime just feels too far-fetched for many.
02:47 More realistic to some, though, is his former teammate Alex Iwobi.
02:52 Despite being born in Lagos, Nigeria, Woebs was brought up in London and has the accent
02:56 to match.
02:57 He would also definitely have a reason to want to mask his identity, being as a teammate
03:01 of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, he will have seen first-hand the reactions some Everton fans
03:05 and others had to his modelling career.
03:07 You can get him at 4-1, making him the second favourite here, but almost none of the clues
03:11 dotted around his music really seem to fit.
03:14 But what's gotten him so low in the odds is that, unlike Nketiah, Saka or anyone else
03:19 you'd care to mention, Iwobi is, in his spare time, already an actual rapper.
03:24 And not just that he does a bit of rapping on the team bus to lift the mood type, he
03:28 has a full, state-of-the-art music studio in the basement of his house and has been
03:32 quietly making music for the last six years.
03:35 Not to get too tinfoil-hat about this, but if Iwobi did want to embark on a side gig
03:39 as the Premier League's secret rapper, the fact he is already the Premier League's
03:43 not-secret rapper would mean he would need to litter his music with red herrings rather
03:47 than actual clues.
03:49 And yes, I am perfectly aware that I'm thinking way too hard about this.
03:52 Elsewhere, the bookies will give you decent money on players like Ashley Young, arguably
03:56 way too old, Jacob Ramsey, sounds nothing like him, and Ivan Toney, not exactly a world
04:01 leader in the field of keeping off-the-field interests entirely secret.
04:04 But recently a new and quite captivating theory has taken a hold, with fans believing they
04:09 have matched up a tattoo peaking out of D-Day's sleeve to that of a current footballer.
04:14 Former Liverpool player and current Cardiff City star, Shea Ojo.
04:18 While all the rest of the clues are very hit and miss, he's slightly older than 23 but
04:22 did grow up in London, the discovery of this diamond tattoo on his wrist does appear to
04:26 be the first concrete bit of evidence to date.
04:29 However, the imagery accompanying these theories isn't exactly crystal clear, so take that
04:33 one with as big a pinch of salt as you like.
04:35 Ojo's a fascinating candidate though, given that the marketing and interest surrounding
04:39 D-Day is that he is a current Premier League player.
04:42 D-Day's currently being in the championship means that this claim and a number of the
04:45 other clues dotted around the lyrics would all be basically made up for media attention,
04:50 which undeniably is working.
04:52 So who is D-Day?
04:53 Well, he's a young man, almost certainly from London and with ties to its southern
04:57 boroughs, who raps about love, life and being a Premier League footballer.
05:01 But it's worth keeping in mind though that Snoop Dogg often raps about being an actual
05:05 dog, which is of course not the reality.
05:07 Given the success he's enjoyed in such a short space of time though, fuelled as much
05:11 by his music as the speculation around it, it's debatable whether it's ever going
05:15 to be beneficial for D-Day to unmask.
05:17 The curiosity has gotten everyone's attention and, in music as much as in football, giving
05:21 yourself the correct platform to play on is half the battle anyway.
05:25 So watch this space, I guess.