It’s been a very long time since he’s been active in his musical career, but it looks like Will Smith is going to make a comeback to rapping, with widespread reports that he’s to be involved with the official World Cup 2018 anthem this summer.

A number of reports this week, originating with Billboard, suggest that Smith is about to release a new song this Friday (May 25th) to coincide with the huge football tournament, which kicks off in a little over three weeks’ time in Russia.

The actor and sometime musician, 49, took to Instagram to tag fellow American Nicky Jam, producer Diplo and Kosovar singer Era Istrefi in a post, which was captioned “One Life to Live. Live It Up. #WorldCup”.

Will SmithWill Smith is reportedly recording the World Cup 2018 anthem

Customarily, the official World Cup anthem is performed either at the beginning of the tournament or just before the final. The official song for the last World Cup, hosted in Brazil in 2014, was ‘We Are One (Ole Ola)’ by Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez & Claudia Leitte, while the 2010 tournament in South Africa was soundtracked by Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka’.

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The 2018 World Cup is controversially being held in Russia, which has had much-publicised struggles with racism at domestic matches. 32 teams will contest the month-long tournament, which begins on Thursday 14th June with a match between the hosts and Saudi Arabia.

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Back in October last year, Smith released his first solo single more than a decade, with a track called ‘Get Lit’, but news of any accompanying album release has not been forthcoming.

In the late Nineties, of course, Smith was one of the world’s biggest pop stars, with his debut solo album Big Willie Style – yes, really – spawning four enormous worldwide hits in ‘Men In Black’, ‘Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It’, ‘Just The Two of Us’ and ‘Miami’.

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