Justin Bieber and Burna Boy Join Inaugural World Cup Halftime Show
Justin Bieber and Burna Boy will perform at the inaugural halftime show for the World Cup final on July 19, FIFA and the show’s producer, Global Citizen, announced on Wednesday, joining an already crowded and eclectic lineup that includes Shakira, Madonna and BTS.
FIFA, the global governing body of soccer that every four years hosts the World Cup, hopes that by introducing a halftime musical performance at this year’s final it can replicate the broad cultural success of the Super Bowl. The World Cup final has long been a quadrennial spectacle. According to FIFA, more than a billion people viewed at least a part of the last final, in 2022. This year’s game is set to begin at 3 p.m. Eastern at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
The show’s artists were selected by Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, who in May announced Shakira, Madonna and BTS through a video that included characters from Sesame Street and the Muppets. Coldplay, the conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the P.S. 22 Chorus, an elementary school chorus from Staten Island, will also appear in the show, Global Citizen said.
A standard halftime break at FIFA-regulated matches lasts 15 minutes. Despite the multiple acts that have now been announced, FIFA and Global Citizen, a nonprofit organization that stages large-scale concerts to spotlight issues like hunger and poverty, have said the halftime show will last 11 minutes.
The inclusion of Bieber, as a co-headliner, and Burna Boy, as an additional performer, means that R&B and Afrobeats will further expand the show’s constellation of pop, Latin and Korean music.
Bieber is a two-time Grammy Award winner known for hits like “Baby” and “Never Say Never.” In April, he headlined the Coachella festival in California, performing a nearly 90-minute set that included singing along to YouTube videos of his music played on a laptop computer.
Burna Boy, a Grammy-winning Afrobeats artist from Nigeria, is featured on Shakira’s song “Dai Dai,” the official anthem for this year’s World Cup. The duo performed it at the tournament’s opening game last month in Mexico City. In 2023, Burna Boy was a headliner of the halftime show at the N.B.A. All-Star Game.
Madonna has won seven Grammy Awards, and Shakira has won four. BTS is the first K-pop group to have received a Grammy nomination.
Unlike the Super Bowl, which has long staged elaborate halftime shows — recent performers include Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar — soccer games do not typically feature a major musical act during intermission.
FIFA and Global Citizen conducted something of a trial run at MetLife Stadium last summer. A halftime show during the final of the FIFA Club World Cup, which features professional soccer teams from around the world, included the American rapper Doja Cat, the Nigerian singer Tems and the Colombian artist J Balvin.
The World Cup final will be the culmination of a monthlong tournament pitting the world’s best soccer nations against one another. Sixteen cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico are hosting the tournament.
