Shakira

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was born on 2 February 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia. She is the only child of William Mebarak Chadid and Nidia Ripoll Torrado and is of Spanish and Lebanese descent.

Her father William was born in New York City to a family from Lebanon. When he was five, his family moved to Colombia. Her mother’s side has two Spanish surnames, Ripoll and Torrado, the former of which is Catalan and originates from four brothers who immigrated from Catalonia to coastal Colombia in the 19th century.

Shakira wrote her first poem, titled “La rosa de cristal” (‘The Crystal Rose’), when she was only four years old. As she was growing up, she was fascinated watching her father writing stories on a typewriter, and asked for one as a Christmas gift. She got that typewriter at age seven and has continued writing poetry since then.

As a child, Shakira was influenced by rock music, listening heavily to rock bands like Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Nirvana, the Police and U2 as well Madonna, Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette.

Between the ages of ten and thirteen, Shakira was invited to various events in Barranquilla and gained some recognition in the area. During this time she met local theatre producer Monica Ariza, who was impressed with her and convinced Sony Music Colombia executive Ciro Vargas to hold an audition for Shakira. She performed three songs for the executives and impressed them enough for her to be signed to record three albums.

Shakira’s debut album, Magia, was recorded with Sony Music Entertainment (Colombia) from 1990, when she was only 13 years old. Her first two studio albums, performed poorly and had low sales, selling fewer than 1000 copies.

Motivated by the Cuban-American singer, actress, and businesswoman Gloria Estefan, Shakira successfully crossed over into the English-language pop music scene with the release of the multi-platinum selling Laundry Service (2001) and its worldwide chart-toppers “Whenever, Wherever” and “Underneath Your Clothes”.

In 1997, Shakira received three Billboard Latin Music Awards for Album of the Year for Pies Descalzos, Video of the Year for “Estoy Aqui”, and the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

In 1999 Shakira’s MTV Unplugged became the program’s first episode to be broadcast entirely in Spanish.

In 2006, a six-tonne (6.6-short-ton), 5-metre-tall (16 ft) statue of Shakira was installed in her hometown Barranquilla in a park near Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez.

In 2010, Google revealed that Shakira was the most searched female entertainer of the year. In 2020, Shakira was the most Googled musician of the year.

On her music, Shakira has said that,”my music, I think, is a fusion of many different elements. And I’m always experimenting. So I try not to limit myself, or put myself in a category.

Shakira is a prominent figure in Latin music, commonly hailed as the ‘Queen of Latin Music’ for her successful crossover to the global market

In 2014, Shakira became the first musical act to perform three times at the FIFA World Cup.

Shakira tops the list of female artists in the YouTube Billion Views Club with her 2010 release “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” (The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Song) with over 4 billion views. The video shot in Los Angeles was recorded in multiple languages and topped the charts in 18 countries.

Aleiodes shakirae, a new species of parasitic wasp was named after her because it causes its host to “shake and wiggle”.

“Hips Don’t Lie” was the most-played pop song in a single week in American radio history, being played 9,637 times in one week. This song makes Shakira the first artist in the history of the Billboard charts to reach the number-one spots on both the Top 40 Mainstream and a Latin chart in the same week. The song became a global success, reaching number one in 55 countries, including the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

In 2020, Shakira became the first female artist to have 4 songs from different decades to have over 100 million streams on Spotify, also marking her as the only artist with Spanish songs, the only Latin artist, and third overall after Michael Jackson and Eminem to achieve this milestone.

In December 2023, Shakira’s hometown of Barranquilla honoured the singer with a 21-foot bronze statue in a park along the banks of the Magdalena River. The sculpture shows the long, curly-haired singer belly dancing with her arms overhead in a sheer skirt with shiny aluminium decoration.

Shakira has scored numerous number-one singles worldwide, including “Ciega, Sordomuda”, “Ojos Así”, “Whenever, Wherever”, “Underneath Your Clothes”, “Objection (Tango)”, “La Tortura”, “Hips Don’t Lie”, “Beautiful Liar”, “She Wolf”, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”, “Loca”, “Rabiosa”, “Can’t Remember to Forget You”, “Dare (La La La)”, “La Bicicleta”, “Chantaje”, “Te Felicito”, and “TQG”.

With 95 million certified records worldwide, she is the highest-selling Colombian artist and the best-selling female Latin artist of all time. She is the only South American artist to peak at number one on the Australian Singles Chart, the UK Singles Chart, and the US Billboard Hot 100.

She is the recipient of four Grammy Awards and fifteen Latin Grammy Awards—the second most for a female artist. Shakira has sold more than 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the world’s best-selling music artists.