Moments before re-recording his legendary World Cup rap (If you don’t know about New Orders’ World In Motion you need to get your Google on) for a Mars advert, the legend that is John Barnes tells RWD about his rapping skills, his views on the lack of Black and Asian players and his appreciation of Dizzee Rascal…

Not only did John Barnes play over 580 games in his senior career, scoring 155 goals in the process, he donned the England shirt 79 times and managed Celtic, Jamaica before last year’s stint at Tranmere Rovers.

After analysing his bumpy road when it comes to management (“If you don’t love it, don’t go into it. It’s a job that you need danger money for because you’re not given any time or any support,”) we soon discuss the reason he’s back in the spotlight. “I rap all the time. Ludacris and…” we stop him when he mentions Luda. “Yeah, Fantasy is my favourite track. I can do the whole thing.” So we know he likes Mr DTP but what about UK music? “Yeah, there’s a new British scene, which is good, because when I was young growing up, obviously we didn’t have anything like that so we really looked to American rappers, so from The Sugarhill Gang, and Grandmaster Flash, and stuff like that, that is the music that I used to listen to. Of course now, British youngsters have their own genre if you like, with Dizzee Rascal and N-Dubz and things like that, and that’s good for them.” There you have it, John Barnes is a Raskit fan. “Yeah, I mean, I appreciate Dizzee, but what I’d say is this is more for the youngsters. I’m more old skool.”

Speaking of old skool we were wondering about his views of the modern game and people’s attitude towards Black and Asian players now. “Well, if you look at – maybe there aren’t as many Asian players playing – but now, you look at all the teams, maybe I was the first high profile black player playing for a big club at Liverpool, whereas now, you remember Arsenal having ten black players on the field in one game, so as far as that goes from a playing perspective, it’s not an issue at all. Obviously from a managerial position it’s different, because you don’t many black managers, but from a playing perspective now, it’s not an issue.”

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Tags: Interviews, John Barnes, Mars