Sixteen years ago, Shakira stood on a South African stage and sang a song that has never fully left. 'Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)' became the standard by which every World Cup anthem since has been measured - not always fairly, but always inevitably. It had a euphoric chorus, an African heartbeat, and the specific warmth of a tournament that felt, for the first time, like it belonged to the continent hosting it. Every song that came after it has been living in its shadow. 

The official FIFA 2026 World Cup song arrived May 14 - a nearly four-minute track featuring Shakira and Nigerian superstar Burna Boy, blending Afrobeats, dance-pop, world beats and reggaetón into something that moves between continents without losing its footing. This is not Shakira attempting to recreate Waka Waka. It is Shakira's understanding that the world has changed, that the sound of football has changed, and that the artist best placed to meet her in that new world is the one they call the African Giant. 

The pairing was purposeful. FIFA wanted artists who would appeal to the Latin population and the sub-Saharan African population simultaneously and Burna Boy, the first solo Nigerian artist to win a Grammy and the first African artist to sell out a US stadium, was the clearest possible choice for what that ambition required. His presence on this record is not decorative. It is structural. Lyrically, both artists deliver something motivational and uplifting - Shakira opening with "You knew from the day you were born / That here in this place you belong," Burna responded with "Go follow your desire / Where there's a will, there's a way." The song name-checks Maradona, Maldini, Ronaldo, Beckham, Messi - a roll call of the sport's mythology delivered with the ease of two artists who understand exactly what the stage requires. 

The music video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis and shot in Miami, opens with Messi, Mbappé and Haaland declaring "We are ready" for Shakira - before she appears atop Mexico City's iconic Angel of Independence, then dances through a desert landscape alongside African children, then stands on a glowing globe amid a starry sky as Burna Boy arrives for his verse. It is cinematic, global, and completely aware of its own scale. The kind of visual that was built to soundtrack highlight reels and opening ceremonies in equal measure. 

'Dai Dai' is the song the Waka Waka comparison was always meant to be about. Not 'Goals' - the cross-continental LISA, Anitta and Rema collaboration that was never competing in that lineage - but this one. Shakira returned to the World Cup stage 16 years after she defined what a tournament anthem could sound like, this time with Afrobeats not at the edges but at the centre. 

The question 'Dai Dai' leaves open is whether you would sing along at the terrace, or whether it was built more for the social media algorithm than the stadium. The song is immaculately constructed, its melody lodges itself after a few listens, and the groove is undeniable. But Waka Waka had something beyond craft. The kind of chorus that removes the distance between you and the music entirely. 'Dai Dai' is the more sophisticated record. Whether it becomes the more beloved one depends on what happens when 80,000 people try to sing it together on July 19 at the World Cup final in New Jersey. 

The 2026 FIFA World Cup begins June 11 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Shakira will headline the first-ever World Cup final halftime show. 'Dai Dai' will soundtrack the opening. Between those two moments, the song will have every opportunity to prove what kind of anthem it actually is - not in a streaming session, not in a review, but in a stadium full of people who came to feel something.

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