![\"Music](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0717-arts-shakira_304316495.jpg\")
Music producer Alexander (A. C. ) Castillo Vasquez in his home studio in Montreal on Thursday, July 16, 2026. Vasquez co-wrote and co-produced Dai Dai, the World Cup theme song by Shakira. Tim Snow \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\nShakira and Burna Boy\u2019s 2026 FIFA World Cup theme song Dai Dai is the inescapable anthem of the summer.<\/p>\n
It accompanies every broadcast when the players hit the pitch. It soundtracks postgame celebrations and explodes from phones when people swipe to a highlight clip.<\/p>\n
Dai Dai is the perfect, deceptively simple pop song that speaks a universal musical language befitting an international event such as the World Cup. It also features a who\u2019s who of worldwide star power: Colombia\u2019s Shakira, Nigeria\u2019s Burna Boy and there\u2019s even a songwriting credit from England\u2019s Ed Sheeran.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The song has humble beginnings, though. Dai Dai\u2019s journey to the top of the Billboard Global 200 \u2014 where it currently sits \u2014 began in a studio inside an otherwise nondescript residential building in St-Michel.<\/p>\n
Even more specifically, it started as a riff on a couch in said studio. And music producer Alexander (A.C.) Castillo Vasquez is relaxing on it a day after flying back from New Jersey, where Shakira is prepping to perform the track on Sunday\u2019s World Cup final halftime show.<\/p>\n
A trilingual St-Michel native who even named his company 14th Avenue, after the street he grew up on, Castillo Vasquez has plaques on his studio wall from working with some of the world\u2019s biggest hitmakers, such as Britney Spears, Pitbull, Justin Bieber and Becky G. But his best-known work comes from his decade-long partnership with Shakira, the unofficial Queen of the World Cup anthem.<\/p>\n
Did he think the Dai Dai riff would travel the world when he and his sister, and Kaaribe bandmate, Vanesa, came up with it?<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aNo, because you never know,\u201d Castillo Vasquez said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned over the years. Sometimes I\u2019m so excited with a song and a beat, I\u2019m like: \u2018Oh my God, this is gonna be crazy,\u2019 and nothing happens.<\/p>\n
\u200a\u201dAnd this one, this time, I didn\u2019t have any particular thoughts. I liked the riff that we did. But it was quick, we did it like in 10 minutes. I just recorded that guitar and I saved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At first, the riff was presented to an unnamed local artist, along with a beat from the same session. Said artist chose the beat.<\/p>\n
Being born here, but from Latin parents and living in L.A., I’ve been touching so many different kinds of music.<\/p>\n
But the melody kept coming back to Castillo Vasquez and, when he and Shakira started discussing the possibility of her fourth World Cup official theme, the riff returned.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was listening to a few options and she wasn\u2019t really clicking 100 per cent. And one day we were in the car on the way to a soundcheck at a stadium in Argentina,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aIt was maybe an hour-long ride. We were far from the venue. She\u2019s trying to find a solution for the song and, usually, I\u2019m never pushy about this stuff, but this time I thought \u2018this could really turn into something.\u2019<\/p>\n
So I said, \u2018Yo, Shak, listen to this.\u2019 We were already out of the car and walking to the main stage. I just played it on my phone. And she stopped. It clicked right away. She told her manager to listen to it. And you know, everybody stopped in that moment. The doors were about to open, we\u2019re late to the show, and she\u2019s singing on it right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the show, Castillo Vasquez and Shakira left for Miami and she asked to hear the song again.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aShe wrote a part of the song in that plane. And then the next day we were in Miami, in her backyard. We finished the main structure of what would be the final song.\u201d<\/p>\n
As is often the case with the modern hit machine, more collaborators joined the fray. Castillo Vasquez called Shakira \u201ca genius\u201d who knows where to place all the elements in a song.<\/p>\n
Shakira wanted Sheeran to hear it, so off Castillo Vasquez went to New York to work with the Brit in-person in a temporary studio set up in a hotel room. Then another Montrealer, Benny Adam, added some more special sauce at Shakira\u2019s request.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aShe heard some of the music we did together,\u201d Castillo Vasquez explained.<\/p>\n
Music producer Alexander (A. C. ) Castillo Vasquez in his home studio in Montreal on Thursday, July 16, 2026. Vasquez co-wrote and co-produced Dai Dai, the World Cup theme song by Shakira. Tim Snow \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n
So while Castillo Vasquez may not always know when a songwriting session will yield a hit, Shakira has the Midas touch. So putting himself in her shoes, why are her tunes the go-to when it comes to rousing anthems capable of reaching every continent?<\/p>\n
\u200a\u201dThe lyrics need to bring people together. It\u2019s a message of \u2018we\u2019re stronger together and we\u2019re overcoming obstacles,\u2019 \u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWanting to get people pumped is obviously part of it. It needs to have all these cool little hooks inside. And it\u2019s not just a pop thing. It needs to be a mix of all these genres, with all these different inspirations from different places.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if their cultural backgrounds \u2014 she\u2019s Colombian of Lebanese and Catalan descent, while he\u2019s a Montrealer with parents from Colombia and the Dominican Republic \u2014 makes them particularly adept at capturing a world sound, Castillo Vasquez called it \u201ca strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing born here, but from Latin parents and living in L.A., I\u2019ve been touching so many different kinds of music,\u201d Castillo Vasquez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut she\u2019s a master at that. I\u2019m just there following the vision and trying to understand where she wants to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are keepsakes strewn about his studio. There\u2019s a printed lyric sheet with Shakira\u2019s handwritten notes scrawled over it. There\u2019s a plaque from Muso celebrating his more than 8 billion streams across 90 songwriting and production credits.<\/p>\n
He may need an updated one soon as Dai Dai approaches the 200 million mark on Spotify alone, and that\u2019s before Sunday\u2019s performance, which he\u2019ll be watching in Montreal with friends and family.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a CM-15 portable microphone, which he held in his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cShakira recorded the vocals on this,\u201d Castillo Vasquez said. \u201cI think I\u2019ll frame this next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakira and Burna Boy\u2019s 2026 FIFA World Cup theme song Dai Dai is the inescapable anthem of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-809948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}