As an Atlanta sports fan, Spencer Neal knows disappointment and heartbreak.
Yet like any die-hard, Neal is starting off the upcoming Falcons season with a common trope: “Why wouldn’t it be our year?”
Only this year, the comedian and Atlanta Falcons season ticket holder decided show his excitement in song form. The track, “Cousin Dem,” and its video are homages to the buzz building around a new, Black coach, an upgrade at quarterback and key additions on defense. It’s also a nod to long-suffering local sports fanatics who deal with taunts about the Super Bowl LI collapse, are tired of hearing from rival Saints fans.
Neal wants “Cousin Dem” to be an official Falcons anthem. He jokes that previous competition — specifically, non-native Rotimi’s poorly received “Rise Up” fight song — isn’t a concern.
“My goal is for this to be played on Sunday,” he said. “Last year we had Rotimi. My goal: I just got to be better than that. I just got to top that one.”
For longtime fans of Neal, his brutally honest but hilariously insightful takes are familiar. In addition to being a touring comic known for experiential humor, Neal’s built a following around applying comedy to pro sports.
Since 2019, he’s released weekly postgame voice-overs and recaps after games. The videos cover all local sports, and occasionally feature NSFW clips from Falcons players, Kirby Smart, Brian Snitker and others aiming to get at what our favorite athletes, coaches and staff truly think.
Neal fell in love with the Falcons as a kid watching the 1998 team, which made it to the Super Bowl and brought us the “Dirty Bird” dance. He said with each postgame recap demand for his content grew.
It didn’t matter if he was putting his spin on former quarterback Matt Ryan talking to ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt after throwing three interceptions against the Eagles; or tackling wide receiver Julio Jones’ outlook on playing with (but not ever speaking to) Ryan; or even ex-coach Arthur Smith’s on-field outburst in his final game. Neal’s followers are there.
“If I skip a Sunday, folks be in my page like, ‘Are you sick, you all right? We ain’t doing no video?’”
Even on the road, Neal said his routines involves making fun of the often-insufferable nature of being a Falcons fan. With “Cousin Dem,” Neal has seemingly adopted a more positive outlook for his favorite team. He also takes a family-friendly approach to the lyrical content.
He wrote “Cousin Dem” in a day. The song blends Neal’s signature, cynical sports takes with smart, Falcons-inspired puns and impressive lyrical bars.
Neal taps into local sorrow: “Tired of losing to the Saints and fighting their fans after the game / tired of all them sad Sundays riding home on that MARTA train.”
Still, he offers a sense of hope: “It’s different, bro, new quarterback, yeah this ain’t Ridder bro / Raheem gon’ make sure everything is Koo just like our kicker, bro.” He even addresses the infamous Super Bowl collapse: “Say 28-3 around me, you gon’ feel my shell toes, RIP Kobe, but 24′s A.J. Terrell, bro.”
If the goal is to top previous hype song efforts from local sports teams, he succeeds.
For the video, Neal put out a call on social media for fans to send direct messages if they wanted to take part. After receiving after what he said were thousands of inquiries, about 10 people showed up, including hip-hop historian Larry “NuFace” Compton.
The visual shows fans dancing in front the Benz and Home Depot Backyard, while Neal goes through his verses. We watch him tussle with a Saints fan and take the aforementioned sad MARTA ride home. The video culminates with Neal and company celebrating the arrival of new Falcons quarterback, Kirk Cousins.
“All that talk about you, go crazy, Cousins, comeback!” he quips before repeatedly chanting, “That’s my cousin dem,” the song’s title.
Neal’s friend, an actual Fulton County sheriff, is the guy pulling him away from the Saints fan at end. The rest are folks who showed up in response to Neal’s post.
Oh, and the Saints fan on the receiving end of said shell toe in the video? “That’s my little cousin. He’s really a Saints fan, so it was easy to beat him up,” Neal joked.
Since the video’s release, Neal has gotten responses from influential Atlanta rap stars 2 Chainz, Big Boi, Big Gipp and others. “I thought I was going to be a rapper, but it’s something about people with two parents that just don’t get respected in the rap world. So I had to pick something else,” he said. “They appreciated the craft and that made me feel good.”
And the Falcons? Neal said he spoke with someone who sent the “Cousin Dem” video to the team’s production department and is awaiting a response. He hasn’t heard from Cousins either... yet.
Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jarrett has been known to comment on Neal’s postgame recaps. The latter’s sister is a regular commenter on Neal’s social channels. He used to hear regularly from former Falcons wide receiver and running back Cordarrelle Patterson, who made multiple requests for Neal to do voice-over videos about his on-field heroics.
Atlanta radio personalities Big Tigger and DJ Greg Street offered feedback on “Cousin Dem.” The former offered to play the song at the Falcons upcoming pep rally in Atlantic Station Friday. Neal will debut the song on Greg Street’s radio show in a forthcoming segment. The song also opens his sports podcast, “Next 2 Ball.”
Jokes aside, Neal said the song’s message lies in one of its more subtle lines. “Yeah bro, in the field but my seats high as hell, bro / But I put the filter on the pics so you can’t tell though,” Neal raps, adding the line is in reference to his family’s nosebleed seats in Section 306, which they’ve had since 2011.
It’s in that higher-up section, Neal said, that one can find true Falcons fans. It’s them, “the people who worked hard for these $30 tickets,” Neal said he had in mind when writing “Cousin Dem.”
“We don’t get on the Kiss Cam because the camera don’t go that high,” he said. “We working class people. They put aside money to see this football team. So that was a line I really cared about.”
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