Shakira Biography

Shakira

(Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, Barranquilla, 1977) Colombian pop-rock singer Latino. Very few Latin American stars of pop-rock music that have achieved international success as withering as Shakira, performer and composer in Castilian and English destacadísimo has reached a position in the fields of both languages.

Shakira

Born into a middle class family, was the daughter of William Shakira Mebarak, of Lebanese descent, and Nidia Ripoll, with Catalan Colombian ancestors. Since the five years he showed signs of his artistic vocation, showing his remarkable talent in interpreting Arab dances and songs. Not in vain his name, Shakira, in Arabic means "full of grace".

At age eight he composed his first song, Your dark glasses, which he dedicated to his father. This, like her mother, soon realized what the vocation of her daughter, who started a children 's career performing in radio and television. At ten years and writing songs systematically; He participated for the first time in the TV showLooking child artist in 1988, in which he was winning, and repeated the triumph in 1989 and 1990.

As a teenager, Shakira signed her first recording contract with Sony Music Colombia, label for which he recorded his first album, Magia (1991), with songs he had composed between eight and thirteen, which followed two years later a second album , Danger (1993). His personality immediately impacted the public and music journalists; It was chosen to represent Colombia at the Festival OTI, but could not attend due to being under sixteen years.

The big break came when she was invited to participate in the Festival of the Song of Viña del Mar 1993. It was then, with only sixteen, his interpretation of the ballad Youopened the doors of the Latin American market. While finishing his secondary education, Shakira prepared what would be his third album, Barefoot (1995). The album, which also included the song that gives title other hits as I'm here , White Dreams and Where are you heart , was a hit throughout Latin America, with more than four million copies sold; his songs were erected in extraordinary successes and earned him millions of fans.

His next album, Donde Estan Los Ladrones? (1998), produced by Emilio Estefan, made ​​her the undisputed star of Latin pop-rock, with more than eight million copies sold. Some of the topics containing this album (nominated for a Grammy and held for more than a year in the top ten of Soundscand in the United States), as that gives title or Inevitable, You, Ojos Asi and Blind, deaf and dumb , they redoubled the popularity of Shakira and projected her figure in international markets.

To settle its growing popularity in the United States, recorded in New York singerShakira MTV Unplugged (1999), a live concert with a special Latin flavor that was the first acoustic performance for MTV broadcast in Spanish in that country. For this work Shakira won her first Grammy (for best Latin pop album) and the Latin Grammy for best pop singer (for Ojos Asi ) and best rock singer (for Eighth Day ).

Aware of the potential of the British market, Shakira then decided to take another step in his career and wrote a new album: Laundry / Laundry Service (2001), with nine songs in English, including Underneath Your Clothes and Whenever, Wherever , and four in Spanish. The album was number one in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, and marked his consecration world, with more than 13 million copies sold. The tour to promote the album, the "Tour of the Mongoose" took six months (November 2002 to May 2003) and left to remember the DVD Live and Off the Record (2004).

Four years after Laundry , Colombia, that did not stop all this time to continue composing, surprised with the publication, with few months apart, two new albums:. Oral Fixation Vol.1 in Spanish (June 2005 ) and Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 , in English (November 2005). The first included topics such as Torture , played a duet with Alejandro Sanz, wall or Intuition . In just three days sales worldwide they reached one million copies. Video Torture also was the first regularly scheduled Spanish on MTV and VH1.

The success of this album walketh not far behind Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 , with which, like the previous one , the singer broke its own records. One of their singles, Hips Do not Lie , which had the producer and rapper Wyclef Jean, was the best selling of 2006; It reached # 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 US and made ​​Shakira the only Colombian artist to do so . He was also a digital phenomenon: in one week 266,500 downloads of the song were recorded. The awards were made ​​to wait: Oral Fixation Vol . 1 obtained in 2006, among others, the Grammy for best Latin album of rock / alternative, the Latin Grammy for best album of the year and six Billboard awards to the best of Latin music. With both versions in English and Spanish, Colombian superstar launched in June 2006 an ambitious tour that took one hundred forty cities in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. The tour lasted until July 2007 and was followed live by more than four million people.

After this tour, Shakira locked himself in preparing his next studio album, She Wolf , which would see the light in October 2009. In the meantime collaborated with artists like Alejandro Sanz ( I appreciate that , but not ), Beyoncé ( Beautiful Liar ) orMiguel Bosé ( If you do not return ) and co - wrote and recorded two songs for the film love in the time of cholera (2007), based on the novel by his compatriot Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She Wolf included topics such as Loba or Gypsy (in which promotional video was accompanied by the Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal), who returned to place it at the forefront of today.

In the summer of 2010, after presenting her own perfume, S by Shakira, the Colombian singer was responsible for firing the World Cup Football in South Africa, the pace of Waka, waka , a new version of the Cameroonian song Zangalewo and anthem World officer. A few days later he moved to Barcelona (City which declared love), where he recorded a video presentation of his new album, Sale el sol , this time in Castilian. The sun rises , which featured a collaboration with Calle 13 appeared in October and presented in a new tour, "the Tour of Earthly Delights", which would saturate in Spain in November.

Despite living in the firmament of popularity, Shakira would not have gone up a big head. For years she combines her career with humanitarian causes. In the mid-1990s he created the Pies Descalzos Foundation, dedicated to helping child victims of violence in Colombia, providing them with educational, nutritional, psychological and medical services. He also founded ALAS (Latin America in Solidarity Action), a non-profit institution which aims to promote early childhood development in Latin America. In 2003 he was appointed a goodwill ambassador for Unicef, and in 2006 received the Spirit of Hope Award for his humanitarian work.

Since 2000, Shakira shared her life with Antonio de la Rua, son of former Argentine president Fernando de la Rua; Wedding rumors intensified by 2007, without actually materialize, which fueled rumors of rupture; in 2010 the singer herself confirmed that they had separated amicably. Since 2011 he is romantically linked to FC Barcelona's Gerard Pique, romance, as above, it has flooded the pages of the tabloids. Beautiful, stunning sensuality (especially with its unmistakable movements of belly and hip) and an absolute mastery of the stage, the Colombian artist, who in 2012 had sold over 125 million albums in Spanish and English, does nothing to renew its success year after year.