#baribal

You may not have noticed – it’s generally a pretty low-key affair – but a certain international tournament kicks off today. A month-long festival of flowing football, scowling strikers and fans sporting elaborate face-paint, Russia 2018 may have been birthed in suspicious circumstances but the on-pitch action promises plenty of thrills, spills and telly breaks (‘cos of VAR yeah? Get with the program.)

Of course, one of the greatest things about any world cup is seeing fans from different nations coming together to celebrate the beautiful game (with the exception, perhaps, of the traditional meet ‘n’ greet between Russian and English fans). The cosmopolitan carnival aspect of the event holds obvious appeal to us here at MusicMap, so we’ve decided to try and replicate it in musical form.

Hence, our 2018 World Cup Playlist: a one-stop shop to some of the most exciting emerging music coming out of the countries taking part. Featuring a track from every nation, you can expect to hear Colombian cumbia, Croatian techno, Brazilian hip-hop, Danish dream-pop, Egyptian rave, Mexican footwork, South Korean slow jams, Portuguese batida, Nigerian afrobeats… and that’s barely skimming the surface.

What’s more, every time a team wins we’ll add another track from that country (follow us on Twitter for updates on that front). So if you’re a fan of French touch or German minimal then you may be in luck…

For now though, enjoy the opening 32 tracks of our World Cup playlist, in the order that each country plays…