Shakira 

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll

(1977)

Shakira is a Colombian singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and dancer. She is one of Latin America’s top stars and is very popular internationally. She is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time. She has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, and has won numerous awards. She is also the only South American singer to have a number one record in the USA.

Shakira was born in 1977 in Colombia. Her mother is of Spanish and Italian ancestry, and her father is of Lebanese descent. She speaks fluent Spanish, English, Portuguese and Italian, and a little Arabic. Shakira was an outstanding student at school. Reports are she has an IQ of 140. She grew up writing poems on a typewriter she got as a Christmas gift.

Shakira wanted to perform from the age of four. She danced at school every Friday and her classmates nicknamed her "belly dancer girl". She said: "That's how I discovered my passion for live performance." Aged 13, she signed a three-album contract with Sony Music. The first two flopped; but the third, ‘Pies Descalzos’ sold over five million copies and made her a star.

Shakira crossed over into singing in English. Her 2001 album ‘Laundry Service’ sold 13 million copies and established her as an international phenomenon. Gabriel García Marquez asked her to write the songs for the movie ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’. Shakira has written the lyrics to every song she has recorded, bar two. She describes herself as a perfectionist.

http://famouspeoplelessons.com/s/shakira.html

Shakira

Shakira Colombian singer-songwriter and dancer

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (pronounced; born February 2, 1977) known mononymously as Shakira English ,Spanish:, is a Colombian singer-songwriter, dancer, record producer, choreographer and model who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s. Born and raised in Barranquilla, Shakira began performing in school, demonstrating her vocal ability with rock and roll, Latin and Arabic influences with her own original twist on belly dancing. Shakira is a native Spanish speaker who speaks fluent English and Portuguese, as well as some Italian, French, and Catalan.

After a poor commercial reception with local producers on her first two albums, and being little-known outside Colombia, Shakira decided to produce her own brand of music. In 1995 she released Pies Descalzos, which brought her to prominence in Latin America and Spain; her 1998 album, Dónde Están los Ladrones?, was a critical success selling over 7 million copies worldwide.

In 2001, aided by the worldwide success of her first English single “Whenever, Wherever” that became the best selling single of 2002, she broke through into the English-speaking world with the release of Laundry Service, which sold over 15 million copies worldwide. Four years later, Shakira released two album projects called Fijación Oral Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation Vol. 2. Both reinforced her success, particularly with the best selling song of the 2000s, “Hips Don’t Lie”. In 1997, Shakira founded the Pies Descalzos Foundation. It is a Colombian charity with special schools for poor children all around Colombia. During her career, Shakira has performed at a large number of benefit concerts. Among the most famous are the Live 8 benefit concert in July 2005, the Live Earth concert, Hamburg where she headlined the show, as well as the “Clinton Global Initiative” created by former US President Bill Clinton. She was also invited to the Oval Office by President Barack Obama in February 2010 to discuss early childhood development.

Shakira has won many awards. She has her own star for Hollywood Walk Of Fame, won five MTV Video Music Awards, won two Grammy Awards, eight Latin Grammy Awards, seven Billboard Music Award, twenty-eight Billboard Latin Music Awards and has been Golden Globe-nominated. She is also the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, and the second most successful female Latin singer behind Gloria Estefan, having sold between 50 to more 60 million albums. Her U.S. album sales stand at 9.9 million. In the fall of 2009, Shakira released her sixth studio album She Wolf worldwide gaining a lot of critical praise for her eccentricity and writing skills. The album sold roughly 2 million copies around the world. Shakira’s “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”, was chosen as the official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The song has received generally positive critical reception, and has become a worldwide hit and the biggest selling World Cup song of all time. On YouTube, the English version of the music video is the 5th most watched video of all time with over 500 million views. When she released her seventh studio album, the bilingual Sale el Sol in October 2010, she gained back her Latin following, which Shakira described as being the main goal for the album. The album has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. Since 2009, Shakira’s musical career suffered from a strained relationship with her label Epic Records, which resulted in lack of promotion and investment from Epic Records towards her two latter studio albums She Wolf (2009) and Sale el Sol (2010).

Shakira

Music and voice

Shakira is known to have adopted many genres, including folk, mainstream pop and rock. In an interview with Rolling Stoneshe said: "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, or... be the architect of my own jail". Her earlier Spanish albums, including Pies Descalzos and Dónde Están los Ladrones? were a mix of folk music and Latin rock, while her cross-over English album,Laundry Service and her later albums were influenced by pop rock and pop Latino. Her 2009 album, She Wolf is more like electropop and dance music. Her 2010 album, Sale el Sol, is a return to her beginnings containing ballads such as "Lo Que Más" and "Antes de las Seis", rock songs like "Tu Boca" and "Devoción", and Latin dance songs like "Loca". Shakira possesses a contralto vocal range.

Discography

Álbumes de estudio 

1996: Pies descalzos

1998: ¿Dónde están los ladrones?

2001: Servicio de lavandería

2005: Fijación oral vol. 1

2005: Fijación oral vol. 2

2009: Loba

2010: Sale el sol

2013: Octavo álbum de estudio 

Álbumes recopilatorios 

1997: The Remixes

2002: Colección de Oro

2002: Laundry Service

2002: Grandes Éxitos

2006: Oral Fixation Volumes 1 & 2

Álbumes en vivo 

2000: MTV Unplugged

2004: Live & Off the Record

2007: Oral Fixation Tour

2011: Shakira: En vivo desde París

Primeros álbumes 

1991: Magia

1993: Peligro EP 

2003: The Pepsi E.P. 

2007: Love in the Time of Cholera

Songs

"Magia" 

"Lejos de tu amor" 

"Esta noche voy contigo" 

"Peligro" 

"Brujería" 

"Eres" 

"Tú serás la historia de mi vida" 

"¿Dónde estás corazón?" 

"Estoy aquí" 

"Un poco de amor" 

"Pies descalzos, sueños blancos" 

"Antología" 

"Se quiere, se mata" 

"Ciega, sordomuda" 

"Tú" 

"Inevitable" 

"Ojos Así" 

"Si te vas" 

"Moscas en la casa" 

"No creo" 

"Whenever, Wherever/Suerte" 

"Underneath Your Clothes" 

"Te dejo Madrid" 

"Objection / Te Aviso, Te Anuncio" 

"Que me quedes tú" 

"The One" 

"Fool" 

"Poem to a horse" 

"La tortura" (con Alejandro Sanz) 

"No" (con Gustavo Cerati) 

"Don't Bother" 

"Illegal" (con Carlos Santana) 

"Día de enero" 

"La Pared" 

"Hips Don't Lie/Las caderas no mienten" (con Wyclef Jean) 

"Te lo agradezco, pero no"

(de Alejandro Sanz) 

"Beautiful Liar" (de Beyoncé) 

"Pure Intuition / Las De La Intuición" 

"Hay amores" 

"She Wolf/Loba" 

"Did It Again/Lo hecho está hecho" 

"Give It Up to Me" (con Lil Wayne) 

"Gypsy/Gitana" 

"Waka Waka (This Time for África)/Waka Waka (Esto es África)" 

"Loca" (con Dizzee Rascal /El Cata ) 

"Sale el sol" 

"Rabiosa" (con Pitbull / El Cata) 

"Antes de las Seis" 

"Addicted to You" 

"Get It Started" (de Pitbull) 

Giras musicales 

1996-1997: Tour Pies Descalzos

2000: Tour Anfibio

2002-2003: Tour de la Mangosta

2006-2007: Tour Fijación Oral

2010-2011: Sale el Sol World Tour

Bibliography

Krohn, Katherine (2007) (en inglés). Biography Shakira. Twenty-First Century Books. 

Diego, Ximena (2001) (en inglés). Shakira: Woman Full of Grace. Touchstone. 

Rivera, Ursula (2003) (en inglés). Shakira (High Interest Books). Children's Press.

Sánchez, María (2007) (en español). Shakira (Spanish Edition). Debolsillo. 

Wilson, Wayne (2001) (en inglés). Shakira (Real-Life Reader Biography). Mitchell Lane Publishers.  

Babion-Collet, Arnaud (2007) (en francés). Shakira : La Bomba Latina. Editions de la Lagune.  

Tomas, Tomas (2007) (en francés). Shakira - La star grand coeur. Editions ESI. 

Thatcher Murcia, Rebecca (2007) (en inglés). Shakira (Blue Banner Biographies). Mitchell Lane Publishers. 

Day, Holly (2007) (en inglés). Shakira (People in the News). Lucent.  

Williams, Zella (2010) (en inglés). Shakira: Star Singer (Hispanic Headliners). PowerKids Press. 

Lee, Anabel (2000) (en español). Shakira Diosa De La Luz. La Máscara.  

Rando, Phil (2003) (en francés). Shakira, l'ange de Colombie. Favre.