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          Barcelona to wear Drake logo in place of Spotify for El Clasico vs. Real Madrid

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          • Chris Wright, Toe Poke writerOct 14, 2022, 07:30 AM

          Barcelona will wear the logo of Canadian rapper and singer Drake on the front of their jerseys in Sunday's LaLiga El Clasico at Real Madrid to celebrate the fact he is the first artist to get to 50 billion Spotify streams.

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          The club welcomed Spotify as their principle sponsor in March and have been promoting a number of artists since then via advertising boards inside Camp Nou, though Drake is the first to make it onto the actual shirt itself.

          Once famed for their ideological aversion to shirt sponsors, Barca will now wear Drake's logo on the front of their jerseys for a limited time -- which, while celebrating the hip-hop star's streaming achievements, also gives the Catalan giants an odd whiff of the Sheffield Wednesday's old crest.

          Drake's owl symbol will appear on the biggest stage in Spanish football, with Barcelona confirming that the limited-edition shirts will be worn for the first time against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu in El Clasico on Sunday.

          "This doesn't feel real but it is," the 35-year-old wrote on Instagram.

          Drake has publicly sported Barca colours before when a photo of him wearing the shirt was shared on his social media accounts last summer. Indeed, the image caused Dutch winger Memphis Depay -- himself a budding hip-hop artiste -- to suffer a minor meltdown in the sheer excitement of it all.

          Of course, this isn't the first time that a headline musician has collaborated with a football club, with many pop, rock and hip-hop stars finding their marques on shirts in the past.

          The Rolling Stones have their own line of special Paris Saint-Germain merchandise, which includes football shirts as well as bizarre offerings such as sneakers, moped helmets and skateboards.

          Bob Marley has graced several kits with both Ajax Amsterdam and Northern Irish side Bohemians releasing tributes to the Jamaican reggae legend in the past few years.

          Seattle Sounders FC created a fittingly psychedelic salute to guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, one of the city's most famous sons, with the club's hazy purple 2021 away kit.

          Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris is known to be a huge fan of West Ham United and regularly plays live shows with a signature guitar bearing the crest of his beloved club.

          He has also collaborated with the Hammers to produce a couple of special limited-edition West Ham x Iron Maiden replica shirts and training lines.

          Ipswich Town have buddied up with local celebrity fan Ed Sheeran a number of times, including a couple of consecutive home kits (which all feature the singer-songwriter's trademark mathematical symbols) and this season's incredibly popular "blackout" third kit.