Shakira and Burna Boy collaborated on “Dai Dai.” It is the Colombian star’s fourth music related to a World Cup, 16 years after she made a splash with “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).”
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Shakira and Burna Boy, two of the most important artists on the worldwide stage, have joined forces for the official music of the 2026 World Cup.
“Dai Dai,” launched on streaming platforms Friday, “captures the power, ardour and international spirit that may outline the best present on earth,” FIFA stated in a press release, including that royalties from the music will help the FIFA International Citizen Training Fund. It goals to lift $100 million for kids’s training and soccer alternatives by the tip of the event, which runs from June 11 via July 19.
The music’s title comes from the enthusiastic Italian expression that means “come on, come on,” and its lyrics embrace the English, Japanese, French and Spanish equivalents.
The observe blends Afrobeats with Latin Pop, sung principally in English and a little bit of Spanish. It is sprinkled with inspirational messages, references to well-known soccer gamers (“Pelé, Maradona, Maldini, Romário, Cristiano Ronaldo”) and the names of nations enjoying on this yr’s event (“Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, U.S., England, Germany, France”).
“It has quite a lot of the everyday indicators of World Cup music,” says Eduardo Herrera, an affiliate professor of ethnomusicology at Indiana College whose work focuses on soccer chants and fandoms.
“However I feel that is purposefully FIFA’s effort to have a profitable music by bringing in artists that they know [are] going to attraction to no less than two massive numbers of the inhabitants, the Latin inhabitants and the sub-Saharan African inhabitants.”
Burna Boy is a Nigerian singer who’s credited with bringing Afrobeats to a extra mainstream viewers via smash hits like “Final Final.” The so-called “African Large” turned the primary solo Nigerian artist to win a Grammy Award (for finest international music album) in 2021, and the primary African artist to promote out a U.S. stadium (New York’s Citi Discipline in 2023).
And Shakira is not any stranger to creating World Cup music.
Shakira performs “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” with the South African band Freshlyground on the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Remaining.
Michael Steele/Getty Pictures Europe
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Michael Steele/Getty Pictures Europe
Her hit “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” helped outline the 2010 event and finally outlive it. It earned the Guinness World Document in January 2025 for “most streamed FIFA World Cup music on Spotify,” with over a billion listens at that time.
The Colombian singer additionally carried out a particular model of her music “Hips Do not Lie” on the 2006 World Cup closing ceremony, and “La La La (Brazil 2014)” — which was featured on FIFA’s official album — on the closing ceremony in 2014.
“She’s … good at sort of incorporating components or gestures in the direction of different cultures,” Brent Keogh, a lecturer in music and sound design on the College of Know-how Sydney, advised NPR’s All Issues Thought-about. “So she will be able to sort of pull on these items and produce it into this international pop bundle.”
Shakira — together with Madonna and Okay-pop band BTS — may also headline the first-ever halftime present at this yr’s World Cup closing in New Jersey, which FIFA introduced earlier this week. Followers are more likely to hear “Dai Dai” there.
However that is not the one place the music will pop up. And it is also not the one music that will come to outline the World Cup.
How World Cup music has developed
Music has been part of the World Cup since its debut in 1930, Herrera says. Initially, it was related to native musicians from a number nation and even the nationwide crew (as was the case with this German polka music in 1974).
Within the Nineties, he says, FIFA began transferring away from nationwide songs to “extra global-sounding” numbers, and “exploring what it meant to have an official music.” These have usually been commissioned in recent times, Herrera believes. FIFA didn’t reply to NPR’s questions on its choice course of.
One early, seminal instance is Ricky Martin’s “La Copa de la Vida” (“The Cup of Life“) from the 1998 World Cup, which turned a worldwide hit and catapulted Martin to superstardom.
Martin carried out it on the 1999 Grammy Awards, the place he received Finest Latin Pop Efficiency for the album Vuelve, which featured the music. That electrifying efficiency is credited with serving to usher within the late ’90s “Latin Explosion,” which noticed stars like Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias and Shakira dominate mainstream U.S. airwaves.
Ricky Martin performs on the Stade de France close to Paris, simply earlier than the1998 World Cup closing match between Brazil and France and his rise to superstardom.
Gabriel Bouys/AFP through Getty Pictures
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Herrera says “Waka Waka” in 2010 ushered in a shift towards Latin songs with extra of an Afrobeats and Afrofusion affect.
The official music of the 2014 World Cup was “We Are One (Ole Ola)” by Pitbull, that includes Jennifer Lopez and Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte. The title observe of the 2018 event was “Stay It Up,” by American singer Nicky Jam that includes Will Smith and Period Istrefi, produced by Diplo (who additionally featured on this yr’s Olympics closing ceremony).
There was no single official music in 2022; slightly, a broader FIFA album. Its first single was “Hayya Hayya (Higher Collectively)” carried out by Trinidad Cardona, Davido, and Aisha. However for many individuals, that wasn’t the defining soundtrack of the newest World Cup.
Not all defining World Cup songs are official
The official music is not the World Cup’s solely musical providing. There’s additionally a World Cup anthem, which Herrera says is usually performed in additional formal settings just like the opening and shutting ceremonies.
“The official music is supposed to be extra like this thrilling factor that individuals get after, and maybe occurs between half instances and is being utilized in broadcasting and … within the stadium, whereas the anthems [are] extra protocol, I feel,” Herrera says.
FIFA can be releasing an official 2026 World Cup album, that includes songs from artists from the event’s host nations: the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
A few of these have already been launched, together with “Lighter” by Jelly Roll and Carín León, “Por Ella” by Los Ángeles Azules and Belinda, and “Illuminate” by Jessie Reyez and Elyanna.
Whereas World Cup organizers are closely selling sure songs, Herrera says many others might be vying to outline the event this yr.
“[There is a] rigidity between the official issues that FIFA’s attempting to current after which what the crowds are going to convey into that image,” he explains. “You will have a bunch of songs and it is at all times a little bit unpredictable to know which one goes to be the hit.”
These might simply be pop songs that come to dominate the charts whereas the World Cup is occurring. They might come from artists in particular nations who’re making extra native songs about their nationwide groups, as is the case in locations like Colombia and Argentina.
Followers of Argentina have a good time the nation’s 2022 World Cup win in Buenos Aires in December 2022.
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They might additionally come from followers, as was the case within the final World Cup in 2022, when Argentine supporters crammed streets and stadiums with the unofficial anthem “Muchachos” as their crew superior (and finally received).
“And I feel that the entry to YouTube and WhatsApp … made it develop into extra distinguished than even the official music, which, really, I do not totally keep in mind what it was,” he provides.
Herrera is curious to see what takes off this yr, particularly as World Cup headlines have thus far centered on political turmoil, excessive ticket costs and fan boycotts.
“There is a sure sort of a festive environment that’s going to be created exterior the stadium, even maybe greater than contained in the stadium, just because it is so costly to go inside,” he says.
