Do you ‘Bleed Blue’? KC rappers Krizz Kaliko and Frank Hensley pour Royals spirit into new anthem

Jake Louraine,
Wide Shot Of Kauffman 1

Photo by Zach Bauman

When the Kansas City Royals take the field Monday night at Kauffman Stadium, a new anthem will beckon our boys in blue forward. A song not born from a marketing team, but from the lifelong passions of two devoted fans.

“Bleed Blue”, a newly minted anthem by Kansas City rapper Krizz Kaliko and former rapper (X-Dash) turned L.A. music executive Frank Hensley will echo throughout The K. As lifelong Royals fans, the duo says this track was only a matter of time.

“I’ve always been a Royals fan my entire life, since way back in the day with Willie Wilson, Frank White, George Brett,” Kaliko says. “I didn’t know how I would connect to [the Royals] one day, but I knew I would.”

The song, having only been released for a few weeks, has already made the rounds in the Royals clubhouse, drawing praise from many Kansas City players already. For Hensley, that’s all the validation he needs.

“I think that after we won that ring in 2015, I just knew I could die happy,” Hensley says. “To have any of them like [the song], the 12-year-old kid from Raymore inside me is going crazy right now because of this.”

Interestingly enough, though, this isn’t Hensley’s first time penning a Royals anthem. Back before the 2003 season, Hensley wrote an anthem named “Get on the Bus”. In 2011, former Pitch writer Corban Goble called it “the dopest baseball anthem of all time”.

During a trip down memory lane in late April, Hensley came across the old article. Though he had left his rapping career behind years ago, he found that his creative itch could finally be scratched; It was time for a new anthem.

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“Bleed Blue” by Krizz Kaliko and Frank Hensley

After piecing together a draft, Hensley sent it off to Kaliko, as the two had been friends for decades. As a diehard Royals fan himself, Kaliko was all in, but not without some tweaks.

“When I heard it, I thought that the hook needed to change,” Kaliko says. “I like his verses. I like that he paid homage to the 2015 Royals team and the 2025 Royals team, but I thought that the hook needed something. I am the hook guy.”

While Kaliko is currently on his first country tour Overtime, before he began his solo career, he was an integral part to Strange Music, the Kansas City-based hip hop label and home to Tech N9ne. For 20 years, Kaliko was Tech N9ne’s hook guy.

“If you’re going to do something for a team, it needs to be a chant, something that the crowd could chant with you,” Kaliko says. “I also thought, What can I write that sounds like you could put it on a coffee mug or a t- shirt, too.”

As both Kaliko and Hensley discussed, writing for a team is different. You’re not just selling songs, you’re selling a brand, so they approached the track in hopes of immortalizing it. The chorus eventually struck Kaliko while taking his wife and two kids to WWE Monday Night Raw at T-Mobile Center.

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Krizz Kaliko. Photo Courtesy of Frank Hensley

“Everything they come out to has this chant to it, and it just hit me,” Kaliko says. “The whole hook hit me while I was sitting watching these wrestlers come out. I thought, ‘Oh, I got it,’ and wrote the words to the hook actually sitting there watching wrestling.”

When Hensley got a hold of Kaliko’s new track, he was blown away as he watched his dream come to fruition.

“I was so thankful when he sent it to me, I could have cried because it was so good,” Hensley says. “Everything has just felt right, felt natural, and felt like we were supposed to make this song.”

Much like his 2003 track, Hensley’s lyrics in “Bleed Blue” are tailor-made for the 2025 team, but they also pay homage to the 2015 team that won the World Series and ended a 30-year drought.

“When you make a song for any sports team, it’s tough, because players come and go, and so the 2015 team, that was easy to make because those guys are etched in history,” Hensley says. “With the ‘25 team, it’s a lot like developing artists. These guys are still developing their talent.”

Hensley’s hope is that “Bleed Blue” can become a staple to the team’s culture, and that every year, they can pay homage to the 2015 team but can change the lyrics to represent next season’s roster, maybe with another KC rapper’s lyrics.

“This ‘Bleed Blue’ idea is more than just a song and is something that can translate well into the future,” Hensley says. “I think the things we said, the emotions we’re evoking is Kansas City Royals baseball.

“Krizz grew up going out there, I grew up going out there, we suffered for 29 years and didn’t make the postseason,” Hensley says. “How much more do you have to bleed blue than that?”

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frank. Photo Courtesy of Frank Hensley

When the song was finally released, it first grew organically, starting with KC sports radio station 810 WHB and moving through Royals circles.

“It just started spreading like a forest fire,” Kaliko says. “I got the personal barber of the Royals calling me like, ‘Hey, man, I love that song.’ He FaceTimed me with Michael Wacha sitting there with him.”

Excitement for the song has boiled over, as the Royals have created a music video to pair with “Bleed Blue”, set to play on Monday night when Kansas City kicks off a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Kaliko and Hensley are hopeful that an opportunity for a live performance will come, too.

“They’ve asked us about what it would take to perform out there,” Hensley says. “I don’t want to jinx it. I don’t want to say we are definitely doing that, but I think there’s some interest in having Krizz and I perform the song out there when he’s back from tour.”

While the rappers didn’t release this track for advertising or merchandising, they’re still hopeful that “Bleed Blue” will find its way into Royals gift shops.

“Seeing it on T-shirts, and people in the crowd having hand towels that they whip around, I would love to see that happen, and us really join forces with the Royals like that,” Kaliko says. “And then it’ll be something that they continue to play each year, and then it becomes this Royals’ staple.”

As for now, Hensley and Kaliko are hopeful the song will reach as many ears as possible, confident that the city and Royals fans around the nation will unite and show what it means to bleed blue.

“That guy from The Pitch had said that it was one of the dopest baseball anthems of all time,” Hensley says about his 2003 song. “I think I would say talking to The Pitch now, I hope that we made the best baseball anthem of all time.”

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