'I want to win a Grammy' - Usain Bolt launches reggae album to continue post-sprinting career

ByHarry Latham Coyle

Published 26/09/2021 at 09:39 GMT

Bolt has also played football professionally since retiring from sprinting after the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London. The fastest man in history has crafted an album with ihs childhood friend and manager Nugent "NJ" Walker, which he hopes shows people he has talent beyond running very fast over a synthetic track.

Usain Bolt hopes that he shows people that he is more than just a sprinter after launching a reggae album.

The fastest man in history has created another record, this time crafted in combination with Nugent "NJ Walker, his childhood friend and manager, and 41 minutes and 44 seconds in length.

Containing fourteen tracks, including "IT'S A PARTY", the now-retired athlete has said that he wants to the best in all he does.

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“If you follow my career, you can always see me laughing, dancing, doing something," Bolt told The Guardian. "I love putting on a performance. Anything I put my hand and my head to, I want to be the best.”

"I’ve been talking about making an album for the past three years, then the pandemic started and I had a whole lot of time on my hands.

“Everyone knows me as a track athlete and I wanted to show people that I can do music, too.”

Bolt also had a post-athletics dalliance with professional football, picking up a contract with the Central Coast Mariners in Australia.

The 35-year-old has also suggested that he considered a switch to American football at the height of his sprinting career, while he is known admirer of cricket, another of his nation's passions.

Reggae originated in Bolt's native Jamaica in the late 1960s, pioneered by music greats including Toots and the Maytals and Bob Marley and the Wailers.

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"Obviously you hear Bob Marley everywhere in Jamaica,” he says. “Growing up, families would get together and listen to old-school Jamaican music like Beres Hammond and Bunny Wailer. I’ve grown up on old-school reggae since I was eight or nine.

“Now I want to win a Grammy.”

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