Akwaba: AFCON 2023 official song and where to listen

On January 13, 2024, Yemi Alade appeared with Magic System and Mohamed Ramadan to sing “Akwaba” at the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup of Nations at the Stade Olympique Alassane Ouattara stadium in Abidjan. The Nigerian star had been waiting for such a night for years. “Truly an honor and a dream come true,” he later wrote in X.

Nice song for Ivory Coast

Although the tournament will be played in early 2024, it is called AFCON 2023, so people are looking for both years. Same song.

On 31 October 2023, CAF released the song Akwaba as the official song of the 34th edition, which was piloted by Universal Music Africa with producer Dany Synthé. The title comes from the Baoulé language, one of the main languages ​​of Côte d’Ivoire, and means welcome. Don’t make up. Wikipedia lists French, English, and Arabic in the lyrics, which follows the order: Ivory group, Nigerian singer, and Egyptian rapper.

Magic System were the obvious hosts. The group was formed in Abidjan in 1996 and broke out in 1999 with the song “Premier Gaou”, which was remixed by Bob Sinclar in France. Football already knew them.

According to Wikipedia, their song “Magic in the Air” was played extensively around the 2014 and 2018 World Cups. In 2018, it became the national anthem of France. Their lead singer A’Salfo is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. He also founded an urban music festival in Anoumabo in the Abidjan district, where the band hails from. They were a natural choice for a home tournament.

The songwriters on Wikipedia list three acts and Fargyle Blax. The track lasts for three minutes and 43 seconds.

The official video, directed by Tony Rodriguez, was released on YouTube on December 1, 2023, according to Wikipedia.

Yemi Alade’s place

For Nigerian listeners, Yemi Alade was a reason to care. His voice was already familiar across the continent and he performed the song live at the opening ceremony in Abidjan.

He told his followers that he wanted to sing at a football ceremony in a stadium since 2016, and Abidjan finally gave him the stage on the opening night of the home tournament in a pitch built to hold 60,000 people. Eight years to wait. It’s worth it.

Then came football. Nigeria went all the way to the final and faced the hosts at the same stadium on 11 February 2024. William Troost-Ekong led the Super Eagles. Frank Kessie and Sebastien Haller then converted and Ivory Coast won 2-1. The song that opened the tournament with a Nigerian voice ended it as the soundtrack to the Ivory Coast party.

It’s hard to buy.

Where to listen to Akwaba legally

This page previously offered an MP3 download of the song, a file that was uploaded to our own servers in December 2023, and since we don’t accept music that we don’t own for sharing, we’ve taken it down. CAF said at the launch that Akwaba is available on all streaming platforms and the official video is on the artists’ and label’s channels.

If you want it on your phone, use a streaming service or buy it from the official store. The costs are low and the artists get paid. Simple.

We do not repeat the words of the song.

Another point in searches. People still write “AFCON 2024 song” and “Côte d’Ivoire AFCON song” and both refer to Akwaba. The next edition, AFCON 2025 in Morocco, had its own official soundtrack, which our guide covers separately.

Our vision

Tournament songs live or die in the stadium, not the studio, and Akwaba had what many of them lacked: a home crowd that already knew the band, three acts from three corners of Africa, and the sound of Nigeria in the middle. It may not have the global reach of World Cup anthems, but it did the trick. Our guide to every AFCON official song covers the editions we can check out. The story of Austino Milado’s Super Eagles songs shows how Nigerian fans make their own soundtracks.

This article was last revised and updated 33 seconds ago