Every week, a different FADER editor compiles a playlist to highlight a new release and give you a guide to that artist’s web of influences and peers. These Staff Selects live in our Spotify app, alongside GEN Fs from our archives and playlists for each issue. This week, it's Matthew Schnipper picking songs for Richard Sherman to hype himself up to destroy at the Super Bowl.
I have to imagine anyone who is reading this is going to be rooting for Richard Sherman on Sunday. Maybe you're from Denver, in which case you get a pass, but I know in your heart you are secretly riding for him too. The NFL is an insane mess of brain injuries, discrimation and bullying that somehow is a funhouse mirror for our society and its gross obsession with power. Occasionally, sensible voices rise above the fray, and Sherman has been able to use his sizable platform not as a pulpit, but as an chance to examine the blatant racism surrounding his day-to-day. His boldness and forthrightness stands out even stronger in contrast with the president of the United States, of all people, who recently told the New Yorker that playing football comes with a "caveat emptor" at this point. All due respect, but fuck that. Yes, if you go into things knowing your head is going to get smashed against other heads, it's difficult to look the other way when you get brain-mushing CTE. But it's not that simple, and it's not that singular. Personally, I haven't watched much football lately (it just seems to make me a willing participant in making people's lives worse/helping the rich benefit from young men dying prematurely), but I guess I'll be tuning in on Sunday for the Super Bowl. At least I've got Richard Sherman to root for. In the unlikely event he is trolling thefader.com, I made him a playlist of music I think he might want to listen to while preparing to be the best corner in the game. Alternately, if you are not Richard Sherman, these songs are good for if, for whatever reason, you want to run head first into a wall.
Staff Selects Playlist: Songs for Richard Sherman