Will the World (Cup) Shake Its Hips for "Dai Dai"?

"Shakira returns to official World Cup song duty, this time with Burna Boy".

Over the past 20 years, the FIFA World Cup has evolved into more than a sporting event. It is one of the largest cultural stages in the world, where music, identity, and global audiences converge.

The numbers back that up. Viewership has steadily climbed across tournaments.

Tournament	Host Country	Estimated Total Tournament Viewership	Estimated Final Match Viewership
2006 FIFA World Cup	Germany	~26.3 billion cumulative viewers	~715 million viewers
2010 FIFA World Cup	South Africa	~30+ billion cumulative viewers	~909 million viewers
2014 FIFA World Cup	Brazil	~32 billion cumulative viewers	~1.01 billion viewers
2018 FIFA World Cup	Russia	~35.5 billion cumulative viewers	~1.12 billion viewers
2022 FIFA World Cup	Qatar	~5 billion engaged globally across platforms; 2.87 billion watched at least one minute on linear TV	~1.5 billion viewers

(Inside FIFA)

Most recently, the 2022 FIFA World Cup final between Argentina and France became the most-watched single sporting event in history.

The United States also became a much larger piece of the equation during this period:

• The 2006 final averaged ~18.9 million U.S. viewers.

• The 2014 final hit ~27.3 million viewers in the U.S.

• The 2022 final averaged nearly 26 million U.S. viewers across FOX, Telemundo, and streaming.

As a result, "Total World Cup ad spend is expected to reach $10.5 billion, with heavy investments from Hyundai, Visa, and Nike, and significantly increased spending on US Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo."

As the audience has globalized, so has the music. Artists like Shakira, Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, and Nicky Jam helped define the modern World Cup sound. Their songs didn’t just accompany the tournament, they extended its reach into streaming platforms, radio, and everyday culture. Out of the major World Cup songs over the last 20 years, at least five prominently featured Latino artists, and three centered directly around Latin stars as the primary face of the campaign. That’s not accidental and follows a year of

.

This is the NEW OFFICIAL WORLD CUP song, "Dai Dai"...

It carries the burden of following Waka Waka (This Time for Africa), which is probably the most popular World Cup song ever made. “Waka Waka” escaped the tournament entirely and became part of global pop culture. So anything Shakira releases in this space is automatically being compared to a once-in-a-generation phenomenon.

There’s a chant-like structure, percussion, and repetitive chorus design that feels engineered for crowds and social clips rather than traditional radio alone. Shakira delivers on her formula for how to make World Cup music feel emotional instead of sterile. There’s movement, joy, references to football history, and enough warmth to avoid sounding like a generic FIFA brand asset.

That said, I don’t think it immediately hits with the same universality as “Waka Waka.”

“Waka Waka” worked because it was incredibly simple melodically, instantly memorable, and tied directly to the emotional breakthrough of the 2010 FIFA World Cup becoming the first hosted on the African continent. It also arrived before streaming fragmentation fully exploded, meaning global monoculture still existed in a way it largely doesn’t now.

Here's a look at how the Official World Cup songs have performed in the recent past:

Year	Song	Artists	Latino Artists?	Billboard Performance
2006	“Hips Don’t Lie” (World Cup performance tie-in)	Shakira & Wyclef Jean	Yes	#1 on Billboard Hot 100
2010	“Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”	Shakira ft. Freshlyground	Yes	Peaked at #38 in U.S., global smash hit
2014	“We Are One (Ole Ola)”	Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, Claudia Leitte	Yes	Hot 100 chart entry, major global streaming hit
2014	“La La La (Brazil 2014)”	Shakira	Yes	Strong global performance, billions of YouTube views
2018	“Live It Up”	Nicky Jam, Will Smith, Era Istrefi	Yes	Moderate chart success, mixed reception
2022	“Hayya Hayya (Better Together)”	Trinidad Cardona, Davido, AISHA	Partially	Did not dominate U.S. charts, strong global event usage
2026	“Dai Dai”	Shakira & Burna Boy	Yes	Early streaming momentum; still unfolding

However, with Shakira returning alongside Burna Boy, the official song reflects a broader cultural axis: Latin music meets Afrobeats. That pairing mirrors the reality of today’s global audience, where streaming has flattened borders and audiences move fluidly between Spanish, English, and African sounds.

It also reflects the tournament itself. The 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, is inherently multicultural. It is a World Cup shaped by diaspora, migration, and shared cultural influence.

If earlier eras of World Cup music were about global pop, today’s versions are about global culture. And with viewership now exceeding billions per match at peak moments, the World Cup song is no longer just a soundtrack. It is a signal of where the world is headed.