Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll is a Colombian singer-songwriter born in Barranquilla, Colombia, on February 2, 1977. She is also an actress, music producer, fashion designer, perfumer, goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and philanthropist.
Her contralto voice is her most distinctive hallmark due to the great resonance and range it brings to her songs. Since her debut in the Hispanic American music market in 1995 with the album Pies descalzos, Shakira has sold over 75 million albums and singles. She is regarded as the Queen of Latin pop for being a global icon of this music, whose melodic and danceable roots are present in all her compositions. The influence of her Lebanese ancestry from her father has also led her to fuse Caribbean rhythms with Arab origins, as well as to create choreographies where the typical belly dance is always highlighted in her performances.
Three of her singles, "Chantaje," "La tortura," and "Suerte," are among the twenty most significant in Billboard history. In 2011, she became the youngest artist to receive the Person of the Year honor.
One of Shakira's great passions is education, which is why in 1997 she founded the Pies Descalzos foundation in her hometown of Barranquilla. The aim of the foundation is to provide assistance to the underserved children of Colombia and other developing countries. For her humanitarian work, she was named a goodwill ambassador and recognized by the United Nations in 2006.
In 2009 and 2010, Shakira collaborated with the American of Cuban descent Pitbull on the singles "Lo hecho está hecho" and "Rabiosa," respectively. In 2012, they reunited for the song "Get It Started."
In October 2019, her song "La bicicleta," performed alongside Carlos Vives, became embroiled in some controversy after the Cuban Livam Rafael Castellanos appealed to the Spanish courts for the alleged plagiarism of a fragment from one of his songs from 1995 titled Yo te quiero tanto. Livam then claimed to have sent Vives, through Sony ATV, a sample of his song for him to sing, noting that the Colombian had reproduced a fragment without his consent.
The success of the controversial song took place in 2017. The occasional duo reached the top spots in major global charts and in just six months nearly 800 million views on YouTube and a Latin Grammy in the Song of the Year category. Ultimately, the lawsuit was dismissed.
In February 2020, following their participation in the famous Barranquilla Carnival, the Cuban duo Gente de Zona openly asked the Colombian artist for a collaboration: "your land is asking for it," stated Alexander Delgado.
In August 2020, Shakira, through her social media, made some statements about Trump while encouraging Americans to vote in the upcoming general elections in order to remove Trump from the White House. “Donald Trump has shown that he is not the right person to lead the United States” and “why do they make pilots take psychometric tests before allowing them to fly, but not for presidents?” are some of her remarks about the role of the current American president.
On February 2, 2020, Shakira headlined the halftime show of Super Bowl LIV alongside Jennifer López in Miami Gardens, Florida, which became one of the most-watched halftime shows of all time.
