Chinese pop star Jackson Wang performed a new single, ‘Fire to the Fuse,’ at the opening ceremony of the League of Legends World Championship finals — also known as Worlds 2022 — this past weekend.
‘Fire to the Fuse,’ released on November 3, is the official theme song for the video game’s new Empyrean skin line. Wang and 88rising, the record label Wang is signed to, worked with League of Legends (LOL) to create the track.
Wang wasn’t the only star to perform at the championship finals. Lil Nas X, Grammy Award-winning rapper and the ‘president’ of LOL, also performed, along with singers Louis Leibfried and Edda Hayes.
Developed by Riot Games, League of Legends is a multiplayer battle-style video game. Riot has a years-long history of collaborating with prominent musicians for its World Championship. In 2014, the first year it did so, the theme song was Imagine Dragons’ ‘Warriors.’
Other artists who have made songs for League of Legends championships include Lil Nas X, Zedd, Pvris, and Jeremy McKinnon.
Though ‘Fire to the Fuse’ was not the championship’s theme song — that honor went to Lil Nas X’s song ‘Star Walkin’ — Wang said during the press conference that “any opportunity is an opportunity.”
He also said he cherished the ability “to leave that first impression on a new audience.”
Riot Games creative director Carrie Dunn told The Verge that Wang was chosen because “His charisma and presence on stage is so undeniable… His choreography ability is unmatched, and this section of ‘Fire to the Fuse’ is very nuanced and very technical.”
Chinese netizens loved the avant-garde makeup that Wang wore onstage. His performance trended on the microblogging platform Weibo, with one hashtag garnering 160 million views at the time of writing.
One person wrote, “Wang’s makeup today was really special; it fits the style of the [Empyrean] skins… the song is not bad either. I’ll listen to it a few more times.”
Some people even made fan art inspired by Wang’s costume.
Wang has been on a roll this past year: He released his 10-track-long sophomore album Magic Man in September, performed at Head in the Clouds and Coachella, and joined Asian-American dance group Kinjaz.
Cover image via Twitter
