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"Team Ball Player Thing" is a 2015 charity single and the official supporters' song of the All Blacks in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The song is performed by the charity supergroup #KiwisCureBatten and is in aid of research into Batten disease via the New Zealand charity Cure Kids. The day after it was released, the song debuted at number six on the New Zealand Top 40.
The song is officially credited as featuring Lorde, Kimbra, Brooke Fraser, Gin Wigmore, Broods, Daniel Bedingfield, The Naked and Famous, Sam McCarthy, Sahara Adams, Jemaine Clement, Savage, Jon Toogood, Jason Kerrison, Dave Dobbyn, Matiu Walters, Dave Baxter, Hollie Smith, Jupiter Project, Boh Runga, Jamie Curry, K.One, Lizzie Marvelly, Carly Binding, Jesse Griffin, Brooke Howard-Smith, Tom Furniss, Joseph Moore, PNC, Peter Urlich and Julia Deans. The music video features these and other artists, as well as New Zealand actors, comedians and rugby players.
Background[]
The project was organised by Brooke Howard-Smith and comedian Jesse Griffin, who approached film-maker Taika Waititi and songwriter/producer Joel Little. Like Cure Kids' 2012 charity single "Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That)", the lyrics of the song were based on ideas from young children. The song's title comes from a young girl who says the All Blacks "should just pass to the other team, ball, player... thing". The song is intended to be both a parody of sports anthems and an actual sports anthem. Vocal parts were recorded at Little's studio in Los Angeles and at a studio in Auckland.