Together in Electronic Dreams

Raphaella Lima of video game publisher Electronic Arts brings music to her childhood love of gaming to spotlight many of the most exciting emerging acts of the past two decades in the hit football game EA SPORTS FC

- Nick Reilly

"ME AND A$AP just clicked," says Raphaella Lima, global music marketing director at video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA). "I met him when I was just coming off maternity leave, so I wasn't drinking, and he'd been in the dentist's chair all day, so he wasn't drinking either. But we sat in the hotel, and he thought, 'You know what? I f**k with this girl! Let's go to the studio.' So, my partner and I went, we heard his music, and we thought, 'This guy is incredible.""

Less than a year later in 2013, the then-rising star appeared in his first commercial after Lima convinced EA bosses that a new artist could be exactly what they needed to boost the US profile of the football gaming series that was called FIFA until 2023. "What I loved about that moment was that it showed the power of new artists. When the campaign went out and the conversations were happening, half of them were being driven by Rocky! It's really cool to have that moment and also grow with him on another campaign."

And then there's the time she found herself travelling through New York in a car with Drake, after an activation for FIFA 2014 saw the rapper bring the Big Apple to a standstill. "Fast-forward to the game coming out, and I got a call from his team telling us that 'You guys are opening doors in countries that just wouldn't have us before.' That's incredible, right? It really shows the impact of the platform on a global scale and the credibility it has to bring something unique and new that people are ready to take on."