ATLANTA — Fifteen months before Atlanta hosts the 2026 World Cup, the city has its own theme music for the signature event of the world’s most popular sport.
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Produced by Grammy Award-winning producer and songwriter Dallas Austin, it features marching bands, an ATL chant, hip hop and pop.
“I just wanted to make it something that was incredible and felt like us,” said Austin, a Columbus native who now lives in Atlanta. “So I just kept wrestling with it for a minute. It took me some months to get it to where I felt it was right.”
The song is available for listening on Spotify and YouTube.
Austin said Atlanta is renowned as a music city, and “I was kind of inspired by everything we’ve always done.”
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Mayor Andre Dickens joined Austin for a reveal of the music at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Thursday.
“At first I just loved it right off the bat because I thought it was a good theme; it was uplifting,” he said. “It gave us a lot of victory in the song.”
The city recruited Austin to produce the sonic ID, or theme music, for the World Cup. Each of the 16 cities in North America is producing a sonic ID, and Austin said Atlanta’s has to be the best.
“It was a process, you know, but we did it,” Austin said.
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In June and July of 2026, Atlanta will host eight soccer games, including a semifinal, for the World Cup.
“We are ready,” Dickens said. “We have all of our security plans together, transportation plans, etc. We’re thinking ahead of how this is gonna be an event that happens with Atlanta, not to Atlanta.”
Austin is a big name in the music industry. He has produced hit singles for Madonna, Boyz II Men, TLC and Pink.
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