"Live It Up" is a song by the American singer

Nicky Jam Nick Rivera Caminero (born March 17, 1981), known professionally as Nicky Jam, is an American singer. He is best known for hits such as " X", " Travesuras", " El Perdón", " Hasta el Amanecer", and " El Amante"; the latter three are from his 20 ...

featuring the American rapper

Will Smith Willard Carroll Smith II (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, rapper, and film producer. Known for his work in both Will Smith filmography, the screen and Will Smith discography, music industries, List of awards and nominations re ...

and the

Kosovo Albanian The Albanians of Kosovo (, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars (), constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-group of Ghegs, who inhabit the north of ...

singer

Era Istrefi Era Istrefi (; ; born 4 July 1994) is a Kosovo-Albanian singer. Born and raised in Pristina, she rose to international recognition with the breakthrough single " BonBon", which experienced commercial success worldwide and received various certif ...

. It was used as the official song of the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded t ...

held in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The tournament itself had no official music album, the first time in 28 years. The track was produced by

Diplo Thomas Wesley Pentz (born November 10, 1978), known professionally as Diplo, is an American DJ and music producer. He is a co-creator and lead member of the electronic dancehall music project Major Lazer; a member of the supergroup LSD (group), ...

, The Picard Brothers and Free School, and was released on May 25, 2018. The song reached number one in Panama, and the top 10 in Hungary, Poland, Bolivia and Argentina. It received negative reviews, with many criticizing its generic, synthetic sound and detachment between the song's genre and the tournament's host country, Russia.

Live performance

Jam, Smith and Istrefi performed the song at the closing ceremony on July 15, 2018 at the

Luzhniki Stadium The Grand Sports Arena of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex, commonly known as Luzhniki Stadium, is the national stadium of Russia, located in its capital city, Moscow. Its total seating capacity of 78,011 makes it the List of football stadiums in R ...

before the final match between

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

Music video

The music video for the song was released on June 8, 2018. It shows Jam, Smith and Istrefi, and the Brazilian footballer

Ronaldinho Ronaldo de Assis Moreira (born 21 March 1980), commonly known as Ronaldinho Gaúcho () or simply Ronaldinho, is a Brazilian former professional Association football, footballer who played as an attacking midfielder or left winger. Widely reg ...

, among images from the 2014 tournament, as well as the

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

and 2010 tournaments. The video was directed by

Yasha Malekzad Yasha Malekzad (born 1 October 1984) is an English music video director and producer from Beccles, Suffolk, England, who has worked with international artists including Enrique Iglesias, Will Smith, Pitbull, Usher, Lil Wayne, Sharon Stone, Nic ...

, produced by Kasra Pezeshki and was filmed mainly in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. By May 2021, the video had amassed over 218 million views on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. However, it was later unlisted, possibly due to

Russia's invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

and Will Smith slapping Chris Rock during the 94th Academy Awards.

Critical reception

The song received mixed to negative reviews. Roisin O'Connor of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' rated it with one out of five stars, criticized the track's "generic message" and called it a "blatant attempt to cash in on the music industry's current obsession with

Latin American music The music of Latin America refers to music originating from Latin America, namely the Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese-speaking regions of the Americas south of the United States. Latin American music highly incorpor ...

, but the entire song makes zero sense when you remember the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

is being held in Russia this year". Ed Malyon of the same outlet criticized its "synthetic joy" and called it "the epitome of a try-hard creation that lacks much of what makes music great–inspiration and raw emotion–and lays on thick the things that we couldn't care less about–meaningless, directionless lyrics and a tiresome wailing from Istrefi, whose songwriting talent has clearly not been drawn on for this tragic effort". Dave Fawbert of ''

ShortList A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates (sometimes via intermediate lists known as "long lists"). The length of short lists varie ...

'' named it the ninth worst World Cup song of all time, criticizing its lyrics: "The words in the chorus just don't fit. is just unbelieveably clunky", and expressing confusion as to "why a World Cup in Russia should have a

reggaeton Reggaeton (, ) is a modern style of popular music, popular and electronic music that originated in Panamanian reggaetón, Panama during the late 1980s, and which rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s through a plethora of Puert ...

anthem, while the shoehorning in of different artists in order to satisfy all global demographics is just patently cynical". The song was met with mixed reviews from fans. ''

Business Standard ''Business Standard'' is an Indian English-language daily edition newspaper published by Business Standard Private Limited, also available in Hindi. Founded in 1975, the newspaper covers the Indian economy, infrastructure, international busi ...

'' reported, "'Live It Up' has failed in getting a welcome reception from the fans. People on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

are requesting

Shakira Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll ( , ; born 2 February 1977) is a Colombian singer-songwriter. Referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Latin Music", she has had a Cultural impact of Shakira, significant impact on the ...

for a new song. Some have even asked

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

to change the song." It further highlighted fans' statements that they would stick to K'naan's "

Wavin' Flag "Wavin' Flag" is a song by Somali Canadians, Somali-Canadian artist K'naan from his album ''Troubadour (K'naan album), Troubadour'' (2009). The song was originally written for Somalia and aspirations of its people for freedom. The original sing ...

" and Shakira's " Waka Waka", and the detachment between the song's genre and the tournament's host country. ''

Scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...

'' observed that fans "critiqued the fast pace of what they called was primarily a

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

tune, noting the

-produced track lacked a '

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

rhythm' to it" and were "nostalgic for popular World Cup anthems in the past such as Shakira's 'Waka Waka' ... and

Ricky Martin Enrique Martin Morales (born December 24, 1971), known professionally as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter and actor. He is known for his musical versatility, with his Ricky Martin albums discography, discography incorporati ...

's '

The Cup of Life "The Cup of Life" (Spanish: "La Copa de la Vida") is a song recorded by Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin for his fourth studio album, '' Vuelve'' (1998). Martin created the song after FIFA requested of him an anthem. The song was written by Lui ...

'".

Credits and personnel

* Will Smith – composition, vocals * Nicky Jam – composition, vocals * Era Istrefi – composition, vocals * Diplo – production

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

{{authority control 2018 singles 2018 songs 2018 FIFA World Cup FIFA World Cup official songs and anthems Nicky Jam songs Will Smith songs Era Istrefi songs Songs written by Nicky Jam Songs written by Will Smith Spanglish songs Songs written by Diplo Songs written by Era Istrefi Songs written by Quavo Songs written by Jean-Baptiste (songwriter) Song recordings produced by Diplo Sony Music Latin singles