From Ajax academy to 500k Spotify listeners: Elikia Mbinga's life after football

Elikia Mbinga played alongside some of the Premier League’s most recognisable names at Ajax’s Under-17 academy in the 2017/18 season. While Jurrien Timber, Ryan Gravenberch and Brian Brobbey went on to star at Arsenal, Liverpool and Sunderland respectively, Mbinga took a different path — one that now draws half a million monthly listeners on Spotify.

The Dutch midfielder made five Eredivisie appearances before terminating his contract at PEC Zwolle, the club he had rejoined from Ajax in 2018. Four years on from his final professional outing, the 25-year-old records under the name ELIKIA and has built a following that most footballers-turned-musicians would envy.

His most streamed single, ‘Mentality’, has surpassed 16 million plays and contains a lyrical nod to Real Madrid midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni. He also collaborated with Ansu Fati on ‘Jelele’, a track charting the Barcelona forward’s fall and rise, with the pair linking up in April. Wizkid and Burna Boy are among his primary musical influences.

Mbinga credits his family background for planting the seed. “My family is very musical, my brother can sing and play a lot of instruments,” he told The Sun. “So it’s in the family. But football was always the number one priority, and then there was this switch — my interest for music grew and I was like, ‘I have to make this decision, what do I want to do?’”

The decision, when it came, was total. “I terminated my contract at PEC Zwolle and just decided to put everything on music,” he said. “And the crazy thing is I didn’t even have my first song ready, I didn’t even have my studio. I started from scratch and from there I just kept on building. It was a really big risk also because my whole childhood was football. It was my whole identity.”

Despite the clean break, Mbinga has kept close ties with his former Ajax team-mates. He stays in regular contact with Timber and his twin brother Quinten, who joined Crystal Palace last summer, and has visited both in London this season. “When I come to London they really welcome me,” he said. “When I look at it, it’s more like maybe I left professional football, but football never left me.”

Also in that Ajax Under-17 squad was Kenneth Taylor, now a Dutch international, and winger Sontje Hansen, who represented Curaçao at the 2026 World Cup — a reminder of just how much talent that single matchday squad contained.