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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00:00It's probably the greatest bit of marketing in the recent history of British music.
00:08A new rapper bursts onto the scene, rumours fly around that he's actually a Premier League
00:12footballer, his lyrics are loaded with clues about his identity, but crucially, he constantly
00:17conceals his face with a mask and never reveals his name.
00:20Ladies and gentlemen, this is D-Day.
00:24Two months ago, a track entitled Intro Freestyle was the first video uploaded to a newly created
00:29YouTube channel.
00:30As well as including a number of veiled and not-so-veiled references to his life as a
00:34footballer within the lyrics, an accompanying website also went live where he directly claimed
00:38to be playing in the Premier League, the football pitch and the actual football branding being
00:42slightly more on the nose.
00:44Since then, D-Day has released a full single and music video Thrill, another freestyle
00:49Smoke and Havoc, and the internet has frantically played the masked singer trying to pin the
00:53clues to several footballers.
00:55So who are the most likely candidates to be a Premier League footballer secretly living
00:59a double life as an emerging rapper?
01:02The name at the front of the queue is currently Eddie Nketiah.
01:05Despite his name almost being an exact anagram of D-Day, there are also several other components
01:14that seem to line up perfectly.
01:16There's a reference to his age being 23, which checks out, a claim that he recently
01:20signed a new contract that put him into the seven-figure bracket, which Nketiah did for
01:24Arsenal last year, and some coded lyrics about having the option to go down a different
01:28path or sit on the bench and, well, yep, there he is.
01:32Most compelling of all though is the prominent imagery of South London in the background
01:35of his video.
01:36Nketiah is, very proudly, from the Lewisham Borough of South London, and the Bermondsey
01:40area some 15 minutes down the road features in the majority of the Thrill video.
01:45Finally, even aside from just the strong South London accent, people just think his voice
01:49sounds similar, which would, admittedly, be a pretty big giveaway.
01:53However, his isn't the only name in the frame, and it isn't even the only one from
01:57the current Arsenal squad.
01:58Third favourite with the bookies right now, and yes, you can actually bet on this, is
02:03Bakaio Saka.
02:05Primarily because, again, of the perceived similarities between his voice and that of
02:08D-Day, Saka also ticks a lot of the same boxes laid out in the clues as Eddie Nketiah.
02:13However, he's still only 21 and not 23, signed his big contract a number of years
02:18ago, hasn't really had to go through a prolonged period of sitting on the bench, and grew up
02:22in Ealing in West London as opposed to Lewisham in the South.
02:26Another thing working against him is just the unshakeable feeling amongst Arsenal fans
02:30especially that Bakaio Saka just doesn't seem like the type of person to have a secret
02:35rap career.
02:36Seemingly shy, mild-mannered and fully focused on his football, the idea that he also has
02:40a secret persona that spits absolute bars on a number of controversial topics in his
02:44downtime just feels too far-fetched for many.
02:48More realistic to some, though, is his former teammate Alex Iwobi.
02:52Despite being born in Lagos, Nigeria, Wobbs was brought up in London and has the accent
02:56to match.
02:57He would also definitely have a reason to want to mask his identity, being as a teammate
03:01of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, he will have seen first-hand the reactions some Everton fans
03:06and others had to his modelling career.
03:08You can get him at 4-1, making him the second favourite here, but almost none of the clues
03:12dotted around his music really seem to fit.
03:15But what's gotten him so low in the odds is that, unlike Nketiah, Saka or anyone else
03:19you'd care to mention, Iwobi is, in his spare time, already an actual rapper.
03:24And not just that he does a bit of rapping on the team bus to lift the mood type, he
03:28has a full state-of-the-art music studio in the basement of his house and has been quietly
03:33making music for the last six years.
03:35Not to get too tinfoil hat about this, but if Iwobi did want to embark on a side gig
03:39as the Premier League's secret rapper, the fact he is already the Premier League's
03:43not-secret rapper would mean he would need to litter his music with red herrings rather
03:47than actual clues.
03:48And yes, I am perfectly aware that I'm thinking way too hard about this.
03:52Elsewhere, the bookies will give you decent money on players like Ashley Young, arguably
03:56way too old, Jacob Ramsey, sounds nothing like him, and Ivan Toney, not exactly a world
04:01leader in the field of keeping off-the-field interests entirely secret.
04:05But recently a new and quite captivating theory has taken a hold, with fans believing they
04:09have matched up a tattoo peeking out of D-Day's sleeve to that of a current footballer.
04:14Former Liverpool player and current Cardiff City star, Shea Ojo.
04:19While all the rest of the clues are very hit and miss, he's slightly older than 23 but
04:22did grow up in London, the discovery of this diamond tattoo on his wrist does appear to
04:27be the first concrete bit of evidence to date.
04:29However, the imagery accompanying these theories isn't exactly crystal clear, so take that
04:33one with as big a pinch of salt as you like.
04:36Ojo's a fascinating candidate though, given that the marketing and interest surrounding
04:39D-Day is that he is a current Premier League player.
04:42D-Day's death currently being in the championship means that this claim and a number of the
04:46other clues dotted around the lyrics would all be basically made up for media attention,
04:50which undeniably is working.
04:52So who is D-Day?
04:53Well, he's a young man, almost certainly from London and with ties to its southern
04:57boroughs, who raps about love, life and being a Premier League footballer.
05:01But it's worth keeping in mind though that Snoop Dogg often raps about being an actual
05:05dog, which is of course not the reality.
05:08Given the success he's enjoyed in such a short space of time though, fuelled as much
05:11by his music as the speculation around it, it's debatable whether it's ever going
05:15to be beneficial for D-Day to unmask.
05:17The curiosity has gotten everyone's attention and, in music as much as in football, giving
05:22yourself the correct platform to play on is half the battle anyway.
05:25So watch this space, I guess.