Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll; born on February 2, 1977, known professionally as Shakira. She is a Colombian singer-songwriter, dancer, record producer, choreographer and model. Born and raised in Barranquilla, she began performance in school, demonstrating Latin, Arabic, and rock and roll inspirations and belly dancing capabilities. Shakira released her first studio albums, Magia and Peligro, in the early 1990s, deteriorating to manage commercial success; however, she rosette to importance in Latin America with her major-label debut, Pies Descalzos (1996), and her fourth album, Dónde Están los Ladrones? (1998).
Shakira pass in the English-language market with her fifth album, Laundry Service (2001), which has sold over 20 million copies internationally. Its prime single, “Whenever, Wherever”, became the best-selling single of 2002. Her success was coagulated with her sixth and seventh albums Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (2005), the latter of which deposited the best-selling song of the 21st century, “Hips Don’t Lie”.
Shakira’s eighth and ninth albums, She Wolf (2009) and Sale el Sol (2010), established perilous admiration but agonized from inadequate advertising due to her stressed relationship with label Epic Records. Her official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”, became the biggest-selling World Cup song of all time. With over 550 million views, its music video is the eighth most-watched video on YouTube. Since 2013, Shakira has attended as a coach and standby for Christina Aguilera on the American version of The Voice, having seemed in one of its fifth seasons.
Shakira has won several awards counting five MTV Video Music Awards, two Grammy Awards, eight Latin Grammy Awards, seven Billboard Music Awards, and twenty-eight Billboard Latin Music Awards and has been Golden Globe-nominated. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and she is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, partaking sold a total of 125 million records worldwide, over 70 million albums and 55 million singles. Her U.S. album sales stand at 9.9 million. Outside of her work in the music industry, Shakira is also elaborate in humanitarian happenings through hand-outs work and benefit concerts, particularly her Pies Descalzos Foundation, her presentation at the “Clinton Global Initiative” created by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and her summons to the Oval Office by President Barack Obama in February 2010 to deliberate early childhood improvement.
Shakira is known to have adopted several genres, counting folk, conventional pop and rock. In an interview with Rolling Stone she 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 initial Spanish albums, counting 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 prejudiced by pop rock and pop Latino. Her 2009 album, She Wolf is more like electro pop and dance music. Her 2010 album, Sale el Sol, is a reappearance to her early stages covering 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 retains a contralto vocal range.
Shakira has told several interviewers that she has grown loving of listening to oriental music, which predisposed lots of her former works. For example, Shakira used the Indian theme for her enactment of “Hips Don’t Lie” at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City. She has also been predisposed by her Arab inheritance, which was a major stimulus for her innovation world hit “Ojos Así”. She told Portuguese TV “Many of my movements belong to Arab culture.” She also cites her parents as major donors to her musical panache.
In childhood, Shakira favourite rock and roll music, listening deeply to her favourite rock bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Nirvana, The Police and U2. She lists John Lennon as her No.1 musical inspiration. She was also intensely predisposed by Prince, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, The Who, The Pretenders, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cure, Tom Petty, Depeche Mode, The Clash, Ramones, whose inspiration can be perceived on her lots of prominent songs. In a new interview to Elenco magazine, she noted that in her estimation the faultless songs are “Imagine” by John Lennon and “No Woman, No Cry” by Bob Marley.
Shakira made a number of covers of protuberant artists such AC/DC and Aerosmith, using them to sing in her tours, resultant in performances of “Back in Black” and “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” throughout her Tour of the Mongoose. She also sang the classic Elvis Presley song “Always on My Mind” at the VH1 Divas Live. In her 2010–2011 tour called The Sun Comes Out World Tour, she sings “Nothing Else Matters” by the weighty metal band Metallica in an oriental panache. She is also powerfully predisposed by Andean music and South American folk music, using her native arrangement for the Latin dance-pop “Whenever, Wherever” and “Despedida”. Shakira newly performed two songs for two distinct Haiti benefit events: “I’ll Stand By You”, by The Pretenders, and “Sólo le pido a Dios” by León Gieco.
Shakira is a innate Spanish speaker who speaks flowing English and Portuguese, as well as some Italian, French, Catalan and Arabic. Shakira is a Roman Catholic, and met Pope John Paul II in 1998. She is absorbed in world history, and she often studies the history and languages of the countries she visits. After her Oral Fixation tour ended in the summer of 2007, Shakira joined a summer school class in Los Angeles at UCLA Extensions, where she took courses in History of Western Civilization. She used her middle and last names, Isabel Mebarak, and told the professor she was visiting from Colombia so as to evade being renowned as a celebrity. Shakira is a cousin of model and 2005–2006 Miss Colombia, Valerie Domínguez. In an interview on The Paul O’Grady Show, she mentioned to herself as a mutt owing to her varied lineage, which she noted as a theme behind her song “Gypsy”.
Source: Wikipedia
