Shakira and Burna Boy, two of the biggest artists on the global stage, have joined forces for the official song of the 2026 World Cup.

“Dai Dai,” released on streaming platforms Friday, “captures the energy, passion and global spirit that will define the greatest show on earth,” FIFA said in a statement, adding that royalties from the song will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund. It aims to raise $100 million for children’s education and soccer opportunities by the end of the tournament, which runs from June 11 through July 19.

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The song’s title comes from the enthusiastic Italian expression meaning “come on, come on,” and its lyrics include the English, Japanese, French and Spanish equivalents.

The track blends Afrobeats with Latin Pop, sung mostly in English and a bit of Spanish. It’s sprinkled with inspirational messages, references to famous soccer players (“Pelé, Maradona, Maldini, Romário, Cristiano Ronaldo”) and the names of countries playing in this year’s tournament (“Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, U.S., England, Germany, France”).

“It has a lot of the typical signs of a good World Cup song,” says Eduardo Herrera, an associate professor of ethnomusicology at Indiana University whose work focuses on soccer chants and fandoms.

“But I think this is purposefully FIFA’s effort to have a successful song by bringing in artists that they know [are] going to appeal to at least two large numbers of the population, the Latin population and the sub-Saharan African population.”

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Burna Boy is a Nigerian singer who is credited with bringing Afrobeats to a more mainstream audience through smash hits like “Last Last.” The so-called “African Giant” became the first solo Nigerian artist to win a Grammy Award (for best global music album) in 2021, and the first African artist to sell out a U.S. stadium (New York’s Citi Field in 2023).

And Shakira is no stranger to making World Cup music.

Her hit “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” helped define the 2010 tournament and eventually outlive it. It earned the Guinness World Record in January 2025 for “most streamed FIFA World Cup song on Spotify,” with over a billion listens at that point.

The Colombian singer also performed a special version of her song “Hips Don’t Lie” at the 2006 World Cup closing ceremony, and “La La La (Brazil 2014)” — which was featured on FIFA’s official album — at the closing ceremony in 2014.

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“She’s … good at kind of incorporating elements or gestures towards other cultures,” Brent Keogh, a lecturer in music and sound design at the University of Technology Sydney, told NPR’s All Things Considered. “So she can kind of pull on these things and bring it into this global pop package.”

Shakira — along with Madonna and K-pop band BTS — will also headline the first-ever halftime show at this year’s World Cup final in New Jersey, which FIFA announced earlier this week. Fans are likely to hear “Dai Dai” there.

But that’s not the only place the song will pop up. And it’s also not the only song that may come to define the World Cup.

How World Cup music has evolved 

Music has been a part of the World Cup since its debut in 1930, Herrera says. Initially, it was associated with local musicians from a host country or even the national team (as was the case with this German polka song in 1974).

In the 1990s, he says, FIFA started moving away from national songs to “more global-sounding” numbers, and “exploring what it meant to have an official song.” Those have typically been commissioned in recent years, Herrera believes. FIFA did not respond to NPR’s questions about its selection process.

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One early, seminal example is Ricky Martin’s “La Copa de la Vida” (“The Cup of Life“) from the 1998 World Cup, which became a worldwide hit and catapulted Martin to superstardom.

Martin performed it at the 1999 Grammy Awards, where he won Best Latin Pop Performance for the album Vuelve, which featured the song. That electrifying performance is credited with helping usher in the late ’90s “Latin Explosion,” which saw stars like Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias and Shakira dominate mainstream U.S. airwaves.

Herrera says “Waka Waka” in 2010 ushered in a shift toward Latin songs with more of an Afrobeats and Afrofusion influence.

The official song of the 2014 World Cup was “We Are One (Ole Ola)” by Pitbull, featuring Jennifer Lopez and Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte. The title track of the 2018 tournament was “Live It Up,” by American singer Nicky Jam featuring Will Smith and Era Istrefi, produced by Diplo (who also featured in this year’s Olympics closing ceremony).

There was no single official song in 2022; rather, a broader FIFA album. Its first single was “Hayya Hayya (Better Together)” performed by Trinidad Cardona, Davido, and Aisha. But for many people, that wasn’t the defining soundtrack of the most recent World Cup.

Not all defining World Cup songs are official 

The official song isn’t the World Cup’s only musical offering. There’s also a World Cup anthem, which Herrera says is typically played in more formal settings like the opening and closing ceremonies.

“The official song is meant to be more like this exciting thing that people get after, and perhaps happens between half times and is being used in broadcasting and … in the stadium, while the anthems [are] more protocol, I think,” Herrera says.

FIFA is also releasing an official 2026 World Cup album, featuring songs from artists from the tournament’s host nations: the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Some of those have already been released, including “Lighter” by Jelly Roll and Carín León, “Por Ella” by Los Ángeles Azules and Belinda, and “Illuminate” by Jessie Reyez and Elyanna.

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While World Cup organizers are heavily promoting certain songs, Herrera says many others will be vying to define the tournament this year.

“[There is a] tension between the official things that FIFA’s trying to present and then what the crowds are going to bring into that picture,” he explains. “You have a bunch of songs and it’s always a little unpredictable to know which one is going to be the hit.”

Those could just be pop songs that come to dominate the charts while the World Cup is happening. They could come from artists in specific countries who are making more local songs about their national teams, as is the case in places like Colombia and Argentina.

They could also come from fans, as was the case in the last World Cup in 2022, when Argentine supporters filled streets and stadiums with the unofficial anthem “Muchachos” as their team advanced (and ultimately won).

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“And I think that the access to YouTube and WhatsApp … made it become more prominent than even the official song, which, actually, I don’t fully remember what it was,” he adds.

Herrera is curious to see what takes off this year, especially as World Cup headlines have so far focused on political turmoil, high ticket prices and fan boycotts.

“There’s a certain kind of a festive atmosphere that is going to be created outside the stadium, even perhaps more than inside the stadium, simply because it’s so expensive to go inside,” he says.