Although most athletes have short-lived careers in the NFL due to the physicality of the sport, it is hard to imagine them turning to music. However, the connection between music and sports is deeper than you might expect.
Music is all about passion and sharing your emotion, which is very similar to professional sports. Maybe that is the reason why many pro-football players decided to start their own music careers. Most of them do it as a hobby and some are brave enough to pursue their music dream of making it to the big stage.
In today’s article, we will take a closer look at some of the NFL athletes that decided to switch things up and start their music careers.
Le’Veon Bell
Le’Veon Bell is a professional NFL player currently as a free agent, and one of the rare athletes who successfully managed to pursue both his passion for football and music. He spent most of his professional career playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, after switching to the New York Jets for one season. He is without a doubt one of the most talented running backs in the league.
However, in the past couple of years, Bell has also proven to be talented hip-hop and rap artist. He publishes his music on YouTube and his latest song called “Icon” has around 3 million views. In an interview for XXL, he said that his passion for music came to life after recording his first song when he was 13 years old. He also added that he hates the feeling of being limited to one field, which is why he decided to pursue a professional music career.
Sam Hunt
Sam Hunt is a former American football player that didn’t find his success in sports. He started his early career days playing as a quarterback at Middle Tennessee State University for two seasons after transferring to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
After graduating from college, he even had a tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football league, which as he stated, was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you know how many times have the Chiefs won the Super Bowl you understand why.
Even though Hunt had a promising career in the NFL, to the surprise of his family and friends, he decided to abandon football and pursue a music career.
He made the right decision considering the success he got from his solo music career. He is now a country music singer and songwriter and one of his songs from his debut album even made it to Billboard’s No.1 Country Airplay Chart.
Christine Michael
Here we have another former professional American football player that started considering football as a career after joining a college football team at Texas A&M. a Few years later, he was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the second round of the draft back in 2013. He even managed to become a Super Bowl champion with the Seahawks.
Since then, he has switched different teams from the Dallas Cowboys to the Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts.
When it comes to music, he started slow and never found the courage to pursue his passion professionally. Michael’s short-lived music career started after he released his first rap song on SoundCloud, which didn’t catch the attention of the public. Later on, he released his first mixtape with a couple of rap songs and it was really interesting to see his musical talent.
In a recent interview with Billboard, he said that it is very rare to see NFL artists that succeeded as music artists. He also thinks that NBA athletes are far better off musicians than NFL players.
Ta’u Pupu’a
Ta’u Pupu’a is one of the NFL’s professional athletes that successfully transitioned to music. This is a very rare case, especially if we consider the genre that Pupu’a has chosen. He started his professional NFL career after being drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1995, but after suffering from a few injuries his days in the NFL were over.
However, since he studied opera for three years at the Juilliard School, he decided to pursue his music dream singing opera. To the surprise of most people, Pupu’a has the voice of an angel. He is now a very successful opera singer that leaves people mesmerized when he starts singing.
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