During his set at Leeds Festival last night (August 28), grime rapper – and noted football aficionado – Stormzy brought out esteemed Manchester City midfielder Jack Grealish.
The pair have been fans of each other for a while, often seen catching up off-field at Grealish’s games with Aston Villa before he signed a landmark £100million transfer to Manchester City earlier this month.
Stormzy has also made his affinity for Grealish known by repping the player’s jersey in public appearances, as well as shouting him out on a remix of the Yaw Tog track ‘Sore’ (which Grealish himself used for a promotional video), wherein Stormzy raps: “Slide in the middle like Grealish / My next hit’s bigger than my previous / Red light’s looking all greenish / Fake n****s call me Blood, I get squeamish.”
Take a look at crowd-shot footage of Stormzy and Grealish sharing the stage at Leeds Festival below:
Jack Grealish on stage with Stormzy at Leeds Festival was a mad one pic.twitter.com/Pd8hJRlUQO
— Ceylon Andi Hickman (@ceylonandi) August 28, 2021
i’m crying wtf why did stormzy just bring jack grealish out at leeds pic.twitter.com/4gOEYLwYRJ
— em (@emshammm) August 28, 2021
Particularly notable is that just hours prior to his unannounced appearance at Leeds Festival, Grealish scored an assist against Arsenal FC in the Premier League. Manchester City thrashed Arsenal in the match, winning five goals to naught.
Elsewhere in his Leeds set, Stormzy delivered a full slate of his biggest hits, the setlist drawing heavily from his 2019 record ‘Heavy Is The Head’.
In other Stormzy news, the Croydon rapper was recently honoured with a waxwork likeness of himself at Madame Tussauds in London. Last month, he linked up with fellow grime star Dave for the collaborative single ‘Clash’, which the pair belted out together at the Reading Festival earlier this week.
Also in 2021, Stormzy funded 30 Cambridge University students’ studies through his Stormzy Scholarship scheme, published the children’s book Superheroes through his #Merky Books imprint, and joined forces with Ghetts for the track ‘Skengman’.
In a five-star review of his Reading set, NME’s Kyann-Sian Williams said: “With an unparalleled ‘energy crew’, another spectacularly executed vision, [Stormzy] continues to reign in his imperial phase.”