Meet Gin Wigmore: voice of 2022 Women’s World Cup drops in – literally – with the trophy

Katy Perry took the stage at the MCG at the women’s world T20 final in March 2020 to perform Roar and Firework with back-up dancers dressed as giant cricket bats. After the game, the winning Australian team joined her on stage to dance and sing through Firework again. The match, played on International Women’s Day, drew a record-breaking crowd of 86,174.

The music that heralds and celebrates any global tournament is a massive part of its personality. What football fan can hear Nesssun Dorma without thinking about Italia 90? Mambo Number 5 and the 2005 Ashes are inextricably intertwined, eliciting from cricket fans a Pavlovian response as they grab a beer from the fridge and head to the sofa.

The ICC Women’s World Cup 2022, to be held in New Zealand, may just have a theme tune as motivating and memorable in equal measure with Gin Whigmore’s Girl Gang.

“Hit hard, cause a scandal/Can’t stop, I’m hard to handle”

With lyrics like this, you might think that Kiwi Gin had written it specifically for the tournament. She didn’t, but is nonetheless elated that her female empowerment anthem has been confirmed as the official song of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022.

“When you send a song out to the world, you never really know what will happen,” Wigmore said. “You do certainly have hopes for it. I guess I had thought it would make a great theme song for something. So when the ICC called I was like, ‘Heck yeah, that is so cool’.

“I’m really thrilled. It’s so exciting.”

From her fourth album, Ivory,Girl Gang was confirmed as the song of the tournament at an event at Mount Maunganui beach, with Wigmore quite literally dropping in for the occasion. The singer overcame a long-standing fear of heights to skydive down to the beach with the World Cup trophy.

“It is legit my biggest fear,” she said. “But given what Girl Gang stands for, I figured I needed to follow through and take care of some bad gal business.”

Don’t be fooled into thinking of Gin Whigmore as just another lip sync pop diva though – she is clearly much more than that and a fitting musical spokesperson for the tournament.

‘Girl Gang’ was also the name of an inspiring project Wigmore launched alongside the release of Ivory. The project brought together different female artists from non-music disciplines to create their own pieces of art based on an assigned single from the album.

The project celebrated women coming together to “fight against a society that so often pits us against each other and tears us down”.

As part of the series, Wigmore also interviewed the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The pair discussed topics such as women having to work harder for success, their pregnancies, motherhood, memorable advice they’ve been given and how to inspire a younger generation that their dreams are possible.

Crowned New Zealand’s breakthrough artist of the year in 2010 at the New Zealand Music Awards, Wigmore was named the country’s best female solo vocalist in 2015 and has been nominated twice for MTV Europe Music Awards.

https://www.ginwigmoremusic.com/2020-here-we-are