SAO PAULO (AP) — Jennifer Lopez won’t perform the World Cup’s official song alongside fellow artists Pitbull and Claudia Leitte during the tournament’s opening ceremony in Brazil, FIFA officials said Sunday.
Soccer’s governing body said Lopez cannot perform at Thursday’s event as earlier planned because of unspecified “production issues.” The singer’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.
FIFA said in a news release that Cuban-American rapper Pitbull and Brazilian singer Leitte will sing the official tune “We Are One” before Brazil takes on Croatia at the Thursday opener in Sao Paulo.
The song has let down many Brazilians who complain that it sounds too generic for the nation’s Bossa Nova-crazed audiences and that it features foreign musicians singing mostly in English and Spanish. Leitte sings only a few seconds at the end of the song in her native Portuguese.
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