Boi Wanda, Nelly Furtado and Alessia Cara pose with members of the Canadian men’s national soccer team.Provided by/CANADA SOCCER/The Canadian Press/Provided by
When Boi-1da was first approached by Canada Soccer about the World Cup soundtrack, the brief was simple. The idea was to create a few songs for the 2026 FIFA tournament.
He soon moved on to bigger things.
“There’s too much talent here to just mention one, two, three artists,” says the Grammy-winning Toronto producer behind many of Drake’s biggest hits.
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Beyond scale, there was another idea that drove him. It’s a competition.
While other countries released their own World Cup anthems, Boi-1da saw an opportunity for Canada to show it could compete with anyone.
“I want to make songs that can compete with other countries that make songs the same way, to show that Canada is the best,” he says.
“We have the greatest artists in the world. We have the greatest artists of all time.”
That mindset influenced the idea, “What if everything went well?” — an all-Canadian genre-spanning album featuring pop icon Nelly Furtado, rock veterans The Tragically Hip, and a stacked roster of established and up-and-coming talent, including Alessia Cara, Jesse Reyes, and Northside Benji.
The album, released Friday, is ostensibly meant to inspire Canada as they prepare for their first-ever World Cup match at home on June 12.
But Boi-1da also sees it as something of a statement about Canada’s diversity and its place in the world’s cultural conversation.
“It represents who we are as Canadians. We are a collection of different cultures, all meshing together,” he says.
Drake producer Boi 1da is the creator of Canada Soccer’s World Cup album What If It All Goes Right? Featuring everyone from Nelly Furtado to the Tragically Hip and Alessia Cara, he says he wanted to show that Canada’s music scene can compete with music scenes anywhere in the world.
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“Born Winner,” for example, is a propulsive Afrobeat anthem featuring French vocals from Ottawa-based artist Joe Ghez and Edmonton R&B singer Frvrfriday, and Punjabi verses from B.C. singer and rapper AP Dhillon.
That cross-cultural collaboration is present throughout the album, and feels especially resonant after the recent debate over Toronto’s, and by extension, Canada’s sonic identity.
Amid Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s high-profile feud in 2024, American radio personality Ebro Darden made headlines when he suggested that Toronto lacks a distinct regional sound compared to cities like Atlanta or Compton.
Boi-1da rejects that framework outright.
“Nonsense,” he says.
He argues that outsiders often misunderstand how deeply integrated different cultures and sounds are into Canadian life.
“I came up with Drake because I was hearing people say[he was]a cultural vulture, that he didn’t understand Toronto and Canada and its diversity,” says Boi1da, who produced two songs on the rapper’s new album Iceman.
“In Canada, you can go to a party and hear seven different genres of music, and everyone knows it.”
“We have Africans, we have Italians, we have Indians, we have West Indians, we have everything here and we listen to everything. That’s why we are so utilized,” he added.
The album features several artists who helped shape Canadian music, and Boi 1da says Furtado is someone he grew up dreaming of collaborating with. The singer’s song “Electric Circus” is her first single since announcing her break from performing last fall.
“It’s Nelly Furtado. You can never finish her,” he says. “She’s one of those artists who can jump right back in whenever she feels like it. It’s embedded in her.”
He said the synth-heavy electronica number had a “gritty, underground ’90s vibe” and that he was watching old clips from MuchMusic’s iconic live dance show “Electric Circus” while working on it.
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Cancon nostalgia runs throughout the project, with “Sucks to Be You” featuring Toronto-born alt-pop artist Sophie Powers interjecting the hook from Canadian pop duo Prozak’s 1998 hit of the same name.
“I grew up listening to that song. It was stuck in my head,” Vojda said, adding that Prozak agreed to their song and “they loved it.”
Boi-1da says the Tragically Hip also had free rein with their catalog to remake one of their songs.
“They sent me the original tracks, vocals, instruments, everything,” he says. “I had to take my time. I had to make the tasteiest thing I could make, because Hip is something that really means something to Canada.”
Boi-1da ultimately reimagined “Ahead by a Century” as a haunting, slow-burning ballad, featuring wistful harmonies from City and Color’s Dallas Green and Métis singer-songwriter Ruby Waters.
He said he felt Green was an important choice because while Waters represents the next generation of Canadian talent, he also collaborated with the late Hip frontman Gord Downie on City & Color’s 2008 hit “Sleeping Sickness.”
The album will be released through Perfect Pitch, Canada Soccer’s national music ambassador program, with proceeds going to the foundation’s youth soccer programs.
A self-described “soccer dad” — his daughter is a striker in the Ontario Development League — Boiwanda says he’s especially focused on sports.
But music and sport are ultimately just part of the broader national momentum, he says.
“Canada is fine, fine, fine right now,” he says.
“Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA’s back-to-back MVP. We have the ‘Iceman’ and we have the World Cup in Canada,” he says.
“My boys are going to go out there and do some damage. I feel that.”
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