A seismic shift in World Cup musical history has arrived as Burna Boy and Shakira’s collaborative anthem Dai Dai climbs to number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, officially dethroning the Colombian superstar’s own 2010 classic Waka Waka as the highest charting World Cup song of all time. The track’s meteoric rise of 25 positions in a single week signals not only the growing global appetite for Afrobeats but also marks a watershed moment for African artists on the world’s most prestigious music charts.
Grammy award winner Burna Boy, who has steadily built an international reputation as one of Africa’s most influential musical exports, continues to expand his reach with this latest achievement. Dai Dai has also claimed the number three position on the Canadian Hot 100 and is currently locked in competition for the top spot on the UK Official Singles Chart. The song’s performance across multiple territories demonstrates the increasingly borderless nature of contemporary music consumption, where rhythms born in Lagos can dominate charts from London to Toronto within weeks of release.
Shakira’s involvement adds a particularly poignant layer to the achievement, as Dai Dai now surpasses her previous World Cup offering with Freshlyground. Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) became synonymous with the 2010 tournament held in South Africa and remained the benchmark for World Cup anthems for more than a decade. Few predicted that Shakira herself would be part of the collaboration that would eventually eclipse that record, testament to both her enduring relevance and her willingness to champion emerging sounds from the Global South.
The achievement comes during a period of significant ce in how global music sales are tracked and measured. Billboard recently announced the discontinuation of its World Digital Song Sales chart, with the final issue dated June 27, 2026. That chart had served as a critical platform for tracking commercially successful songs from Nigeria, Asia, the Caribbean, South Africa, and other regions often underrepresented in mainstream Western music rankings. Nigerian artists including Wizkid, Mr Eazi, and Rema had all previously topped that now defunct chart, using it as a stepping stone to broader international recognition.
Industry observers suggest that the retirement of the World Digital Song Sales chart reflects both the mainstreaming of once niche musical styles and the evolving mechanics of how streaming and digital consumption are measured. Rather than being relegated to specialty charts, artists from previously marginalized markets are now competing directly on flagship rankings like the Hot 100. Burna Boy’s success with Dai Dai exemplifies this transition, proving that African artists no longer need separate categories to demonstrate commercial viability and cultural impact on a global scale.
As the song continues its upward trajectory across international markets, attention now turns to whether Dai Dai can crack the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and secure that coveted number one position in the United Kingdom. Beyond chart positions, the collaboration represents a broader cultural validation for Afrobeats as a genre and for Nigeria as a creative powerhouse. Whether future World Cup anthems can match this commercial peak remains uncertain, but Burna Boy and Shakira have undeniably reset the bar for what global football songs can achieve in an increasingly interconnected musical landscape.
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