Juventus and USMNT winger Timothy Weah has been journeying to fulfil his creative dreams in an ever-growing multicultural and interconnected football landscape. Donning a super-rare Supreme x Corteiz collab hoodie, a smiley Weah pops up on my Zoom screen; currently resting after a light ankle injury that kept him absent from his club’s second Champions League and seventh Serie A fixtures, he slowly swivels on his chair, showing me his in-home music studio.
“If I wasn’t a footballer, I’d be a songwriter or musician,” he states later on in our conversation, fiddling with his phone to run me through the sounds that he’s been listening to. It includes a spread of unique artists, who often infuse their music with elements of the alternative or R&B—styles of music Weah is currently toying with himself as a burgeoning producer. He’s been making music for a while now, collaborating with artists and friends—like Fleetzy—and hosting a studio space that has become a link-up spot for fellow creative minds.
Weah has a wealth of interests and investments outside of the game. You might find him on the frow at Fashion Weeks around the world, or spending downtime in his hometown of New York City, if not in his home studio making music. Even within the game, his peers know of his love for music and fashion and have a real understanding of his entrepreneurial spirit. On an episode of Scuffed, a U.S. soccer-based podcast, insiders mentioned that Weah even runs the national teams’ locker room playlist.
In speaking to Weah, it’s clear that there is a different kind of camaraderie among players with creative interests outside of the pitch, with figures like himself being the threads that weave the culture together. The Brooklyn-born ‘baller comes from a city teeming with culture, propped by his family’s own extended sense of culture and how they grew up. Weah has such a unique journey to being here: both of his parents, a Liberian father and a Jamaican mother, grew up in then-impoverished countries and they both respect the hardships of developing from a place where life is truly hard. Hence his passion for investing in the community as he has done in Brooklyn, philanthropy back home in Liberia, and building on his creative missions that represent the wider sense of culture that he’s inspired by.
We caught up with Timothy Weah to discuss his start to this season and playing under the guidance of Juventus’ new manager, Thiago Motta, his endeavours in music and fashion, the impetus behind his philanthropic work in West Africa, and much more.
Rolling Stone Africa: You visited the Clar Hope Foundation in Liberia earlier this year, which showed a heartwarming celebration of your arrival and moments of a conversation regarding growth, change, and opportunity. In that video, you say, “I’m always excited with the welcome back home, but it’s not a welcome because I am home.” I thought that was a beautiful sentiment. Considering that, what’s your relationship like with Liberia and seeing such a country evolve?
Timothy Weah: My relationship with Liberia—Africa in general—has always been a big thing for me. Not only because of Liberia and my dad, but even through my mother’s side—my Jamaican side—I have an uncle in New York called Michael Duncan, and he’s a Pan-Africanist. He would study figures like Patrice Lumumba and Marcus Garvey, and I learned so much from him. All of these strong Black figures in the Afro community really meant a lot to us—and still do. I grew up with seminars, lectures, and seeing all these different ideas that come with Pan-Africanism. It always made me want to go back to my roots and know where I come from. Being Liberian, I had aunties and uncles but I had never been when I was younger. So, getting that experience of going there now, and finally connecting with my family, roots and the people there, was really amazing. I have a strong connection with Liberia.
Even with my mother’s foundation, Clar Hope, she just built a school for young women in Liberia. With any extra money I get from New Balance or my contract, I tend to donate to her to add on to the school. We can only help the country so much, in terms of development. The most important thing I can do is play my part; her dream is also my dream, so it’s a wonderful thing to be a part of.
What are your own personal philanthropic goals?
One of the most important things for me is building up the community where I come from, in Brooklyn. Helping people struggling there, specifically single mothers, that’s one of my biggest goals—I want to be able to give back to the community that way. In terms of the work I’m doing in Africa, in Liberia, my goal is to help the country develop as much as I can. With the philanthropy I’m doing with my mother, in the future, hopefully, I can help develop the national team in Liberia. I think people will say, “Oh, but you don’t play for the national team.” But you don’t have to play for the national team to care about the country, to give back. That’s one of my main goals: to help the Liberian national team and federation as much as I can.
Love that. So, how has the start of your second season at Juventus been? We saw that banger you scored against Como recently, and I have to say: your ball-striking technique is epic!
Thank you, thank you! It’s been good, honestly. You know, at the start of the season, it was good to get the goal in the first game. That’s always, like, the hardest one to get. Obviously, I got injured for two weeks and now I’m just getting back into rhythm with the team. It’s going to keep on picking up from here.
I watched the Champions League games against PSV and Leipzig—it was a fantastic comeback win, with a man down. I’m not sure about the competition’s new format, but I am happy to see Juventus return. Considering the evolution of the competition, how have you and the team assessed your chances, the extra games, and how does it reflect on your league ambitions?
Honestly, I prefer this format. I think having to play the same team back to back, you have to go to their home, and they’ve got to go to yours. Obviously, that’s the original format—what everyone grew up on—but I think this one is better. You go home, you go away, and they just do it by points. With the Champions League this season, we have a lot of games that fit into one schedule. It’s a lot; everyone’s gonna have to be on their Ps & Qs to thug it out this season. There’s going to be a lot of games, and a lot of work, so we’ve got to figure out a way to win as many games as possible.
The last time we spoke, September 2023, you were just settling into Turin and you said you felt welcomed by the team. How has that evolved over the last year, and what’s the vibe like under the new manager Thiago Motta?
He’s a younger manager, so he demands a lot more. But he also lets us play freely, how we want to play. There’s obviously a structure you need while defending, but in attack, he tells us to enjoy ourselves. He’s a coach that expects a lot from his players because he was such a high-level player; I think it’s good for us to have that example, and the Italian league is really physical and tactical. At the end of the day, it’s a lot of hard work in training, in games, and so far it’s been good. Hopefully, we keep it at that standard.
We also talked about your investment in fashion, and you’ve seemingly been building behind the scenes establishing your own style and making connections within the spread of creative fields. How has that all been for you so far?
It’s been good, man. I haven’t been posting as much as I usually do; I’ve been off the ‘gram lately. When I come back to regular posting—fashion-wise, it’s going to be dope! I’ma come back with something new, try to mix it up a little bit. But I’ve actually been focusing more on music, on songwriting, and hopefully when I dip back into fashion, I can go crazy and mix it all together.
What brands are you really digging right now?
So, quick story. 2018: I’m in Paris, watching France play and win the World Cup. At the watch party, a photographer came up to me and was like, “Yo! Can I take a picture of you?” I still have the pictures to this day. So, after he took the pics, me and the photographer were just chilling and we started talking. I wanted to know where he wanted to take his photography, but then he’s like: “I want to start a clothing brand.” Fast forward a few years, and Clint—who was the photographer in France that day—now has a massive clothing brand called Corteiz! I really like Corteiz. It’s a top-tier brand for me: easy fits, easy wear. I also like Miu Miu, Aime Leon Dore, Supreme, Martine Rose… Martine just did a super-clean collab with Supreme. Prada—we love Prada! Drama Call from Manchester, too.
What’s got you so interested in the music side of things?
If I wasn’t a football player, I would be a songwriter or a musician. Most of my time is spent in the studio, as you can see… I’m in my home studio right now, in my room. 24/7, the studio is in my room, so I’m cooking up! If not training or on the field, I’ll always be at home with my friend in the studio—he’s also a producer and artist. Whenever he comes over, we’re in the studio together.
Has playing football helped you in any way with the way you apply yourself to music creation?
Being a footballer, there are so many let-downs, so many positive moments, and so many trials and tribulations that I think helps me so much in other fields. I know what it’s like to have the best day ever, and I know what it’s like to be and feel let-down. I kinda just run with it. In the music industry, it takes time and a lot of work. Some people are going to say no, some people are going to say yes. In youth football, it’s the same thing. But you grow with that mentality, the “work hard” mentality, to not give up. I kinda apply the same logic to music, acknowledging that it will take time and that I just need to through the motions.
Who have you been listening to recently that complements or inspires the styles of music that you have been making?
I’ll start with my style: it’s alternative R&B. I listen to a lot of Brent Faiyaz, SZA and Travis Scott, so that’s where the alternative side comes from. We add a lot of those sounds—like Travis’ synths—and we make an R&B mix of it. When I do listen to rap, I listen to Babyface Ray—he is cold!—Drake, Don Toliver… Don, for me, is top tier. Nemzz and Knucks from the UK are cold, too, and I love what Rema and Asake are doing for African music right now. There’s also this artist I’ve been listening to for a long time: Odeal. He’s fire! He recently just dropped some heat. I was listening to him way before he blew up.
We see a lot of your footballing peers—like Andre Gomes from Lille, Ola Aina of Nottingham Forest, and your Juventus teammates—support your creative endeavours through social media. How do you connect with your peers in the game, creatively?
Creatively, it really depends on the person. I think me and Moise Kean mesh well together; we have the same taste in music and fashion. Marcus Thuram, of Inter Milan, we kind of live the same lifestyles but in a different way. Those are the guys who are creatively on the same wavelength. We will chop it up about certain things, and it feels different from the usual type of creative person. Me and my best friend on the national team, Chris Richards, who plays for Crystal Palace, we chop it up about having a brand, putting together different projects and things like that. It’s just dependent on the person and what their interests are besides football. But I do want to say a huge thank you to everyone who supports whatever I do, from football to music to fashion. It really means a lot.
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