Only two days separate us from the AFCON, and the opening song is finally here. This week has been so exhilarating with all the ongoing preparations, and what we were waiting for the most was a catchy song that will hopefully be stuck on replay.

The song is a collaboration between the renowned Egyptian singer Hakeem, Nigerian, Femi Kuti, and South African Grammy award-winner Nkulee Dube. When we first heard that Hakeem was the one who’ll be singing the AFCON’s song, people started guessing the lyrics, and hilariously thinking it was going to be something like “efred masalan ya3ny eni raza3tak goal”. Egyptians never get tired of making a meme out of anything!

The song “Metgama3een”, which turns out to be something else, of course, is produced by Synergy Advertising agency. It was written by Mohey Hawwar and composed by Sherif Hemdan. The music video is still not out yet, but we’re looking forward to it.

The lyrics are quite on point, talking about togetherness and the sense of nationalism that football brings. The rhythm, however, is a bit disappointing. We honestly had higher hopes; it’s just not as catchy or upbeat as we expected.

As we all know, Hakeem has always been a fan-favourite, not just here in Egypt, but around the world. The stunning performer James Brown, for example, loved him, and they actually made a song together called “Leila”.  Hakeem has also performed in many international ceremonies like the Nobel Awards opening ceremony back in 2018. It was held at Olympia Theatre in Paris, making Hakeem the second Egyptian to perform there after Um Kalthoum. The ceremony was to promote Egypt in the global tourism campaign, “This Is Egypt”.

Have you listened to the song yet? If you haven’t, listen now and let us know what you think.