Salim-Sulaiman to perform at FIFA World Cup 2010

Indian music composers Salim and Sulaiman Merchant, who collaborated with South African singers Loyiso Bala and Eric Wainaina to record the anthem for the FIFA World Cup 2010, will perform at the opening and closing ceremonies of the football event.

Image not recovered“It’s definitely an honour to get the opportunity to perform at such a huge platform. In fact, besides this anthem, we are also going to sing our song ‘Shukran Allah’ from ‘Kurbaan’ with Loyiso and Eric. Music knows no boundaries,” said a delighted Salim.

Salim Merchant told the reporters how it all started when a friend from Africa requested them to compose a song, which later reached the FIFA organizing committee. Jeanne Merchant, Salim’s wife, has written the song.

“It’s called the African Promise. They (FIFA committee members) loved it so much that they wanted it as the anthem of the World Cup. The song’s written by my wife Jeanne and we will also be performing it for the Nelson Mandela Foundation after which we intend having a concert, too,” he said.

Since the corporate body is made up of mainly Indians, FIFA wanted Salim-Sulaiman to score a sports anthem similar to Chak De India. The composers have scored music for a number of popular Bollywood films like Fashion, Kurbaan, Chak De India, and so on.

Query them, if they're a mite nervous, and Suleiman swiftly says, "No way. We don't care if we're going to share the same platform as other international celebs, all we care about is our performance."

Later the duo will also perform for the fund raising concert for Nelson Mandela Foundation, a trust that is actively working towards providing medical assistance for corrective surgery of cleft lip and palate.

They will fly to Johannesburg in the second week of June for the opening ceremony and then come back to India before going again for the closing ceremony in July.

Photograph Courtesy: Sameer Parekh

From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Thursday 27 May 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.