Lil Baby, Budweiser & FIFA team up for the World Cup anthem

Atlanta rapper Lil Baby has teamed up with beer company Budweiser and the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) for the official anthem of the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup. A cover of the 1985 track, ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ by Tears For Fears, the track is entitled ‘The World Is Yours To Take’ and was previewed by Lil Baby on Twitter.

The official theme song of the entire competition is, in fact, a euro-house song with an Arabic twist, ‘C’est La Vie’ by Khaled, which was released over a decade ago. However, Lil Baby has clinched the official song for one of the main sponsors, beer brand Budweiser. 

Sampling a classic such as ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ is a risky move from the Atlanta rapper, and the track will undoubtedly be polarising. However, the intro to the already released lyric video presents a text that reads ‘The World Is Yours To Take by Lil Baby & Tears For Fears’, insinuating that the song is the result of a collaboration.  Despite the seemingly incompatible styles of the two, according to Middle Eastern economists, Qatar expects November’s World Cup to add as much as $17 billion to its economy, so it’s unsurprising that Tears For Fears want a slice of the pie.

With plenty of product placement in the lyric video and copious amounts of autotune on Lil Baby’s voice, it would be a lie to state that the so-called anthem is musically pleasing. It is also not aesthetically pleasing. With “soccer” being one of the least watched sports in the US behind (American) football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and golf, it is hard to place Lil Baby in the world of what the rest of the world calls football. 

Taking to Twitter to preview the track, one user wrote, “This is amazing. I imagine Europeans will have a stroke with this one tho. They are so stuck up and moan about everything.” Another user countered, “Cause Europe have better standards to music than the US, always been like that. And especially in sports history.” 

Evidently, the track is already stoking the flames of division. Take a listen to the track in the official lyric video below.