Key facts
- The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the first to feature 48 teams and the first co-hosted by three nations: the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
- Shakira and Burna Boy performed their World Cup anthem "Dai Dai" live for the first time at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca on June 11 before a crowd of more than 80,000.
- The World Cup Final halftime show on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey will be the first of its kind in FIFA history, headlined by Madonna, Shakira, and BTS.
- The official World Cup anthem "DNA" features Andrea Bocelli, EJAE, David Guetta, and Megan Thee Stallion.
Three Countries, Three Ceremonies, One Spectacle
The 2026 FIFA World Cup opened on Thursday with a performance that organisers had been building toward for months. At Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, before 80,000 fans and millions watching worldwide, Shakira walked onto the pitch in a bright yellow mesh bodysuit and performed "Dai Dai" live for the first time, with Burna Boy joining her midway through in a matching denim set. Red and green smoke erupted from the top of the stadium as they finished. It was, by any measure, a serious opening statement.
The 2026 tournament is the first World Cup co-hosted by three nations and FIFA has used the format to run three separate opening ceremonies, each anchored to their host nation's first match. The result is less a single event and more a rolling three-day entertainment programme that puts some of the biggest names in music in front of football's largest global audience.
Mexico City: Shakira Brings Afrobeats to the Azteca
The Mexico ceremony was the most globally watched of the three, and it delivered. Lila Downs opened proceedings by welcoming the world in Spanish and English while the pitch filled with performers in costumes drawn from Aztec visual culture. Then came J Balvin, Maná, Belinda, Danny Ocean, and Los Ángeles Azules before Shakira and Burna Boy closed the show.
Shakira has become a recurring figure at football's biggest moments, from her 2010 World Cup anthem "Waka Waka" to her 2020 Super Bowl halftime appearance. "Dai Dai" positions her squarely in that tradition, and the collaboration with Burna Boy gives it a reach that extends well beyond Latin America. Afrobeats on the World Cup stage in 2026 is not a surprise. It is a confirmation of where the genre now sits in the global pop hierarchy.
For Burna Boy, the Estadio Azteca slot is the largest single stage of his career. The image of the two of them closing an 80,000-person ceremony in Mexico City is one of the defining celebrity entertainment moments of the summer.
Los Angeles and Toronto: Katy Perry, Michael Bublé, and a Cross-Continental Lineup
On June 12, attention shifts to two ceremonies running in parallel. In Los Angeles, the United States opens its World Cup campaign at SoFi Stadium with a ceremony featuring Katy Perry, Future, Anitta, LISA, Rema, and Tyla. Dan + Shay perform the national anthem before the US face Paraguay. In Toronto, Canada's ceremony carries a theme of cultural mosaic with a lineup built around Alanis Morissette, Michael Bublé, Alessia Cara, Elyanna, Jessie Reyez, and Nora Fatehi, plus a turn from comedian Will Arnett.
The breadth of the combined lineup is unusual even by World Cup standards. LISA brings K-pop's global reach to Los Angeles. Rema and Burna Boy together make Afrobeats the most represented genre of the entire opening weekend. Alanis Morissette singing Canada's national anthem at a World Cup opening is a moment that would have seemed unlikely a decade ago. FIFA has leaned into the multi-host format not just logistically but editorially, using it to build a lineup that reflects the actual geography of global pop in 2026 rather than defaulting to a single commercial centre.
The World Cup Final: Madonna, Shakira, and BTS at MetLife Stadium
The headline reserved for the World Cup Final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey is the biggest of all. Madonna, Shakira, and BTS will headline the first-ever halftime show at a FIFA World Cup Final, a format borrowed directly from the Super Bowl playbook and confirmed by FIFA earlier this year.
The scale of that decision is worth sitting with. BTS's fanbase, ARMY, is one of the largest and most organised in music. Madonna's catalogue spans four decades. Shakira will have already performed the opening ceremony in Mexico City five weeks earlier. By the time July 19 arrives she will have bookended the entire tournament. No other artist at the 2026 World Cup carries that arc, and no previous World Cup has ever put a halftime show at its final.
The official World Cup anthem, "DNA," recorded by Andrea Bocelli, EJAE, David Guetta, and Megan Thee Stallion, previewed the ambition of what FIFA is building around this tournament. The entertainment strategy is not incidental to the World Cup. For the first time, it is being treated as a parallel programme in its own right, designed to carry casual audiences through five weeks of group stages and knockouts and deliver them to a final built like a stadium concert.
Sources
- Billboard: Shakira, Burna Boy, J Balvin kick off 2026 World Cup opening ceremony in Mexico — primary reporting on the Mexico City ceremony and Dai Dai performance.
- Al Jazeera: What happened and who performed at the World Cup 2026 opening ceremony — full recap of Mexico ceremony performers and staging details.
- NBC Los Angeles: FIFA unveils star-studded performers for trio of World Cup opening ceremonies — source for US, Canada, and Final halftime show lineups.
- CBS Sports: 2026 World Cup opening ceremony live updates — source for DNA anthem performers and ceremony details.
