Shakira: WP3
Her name, Shakira, means grateful. From her father’s first marriage, she has eight half-siblings. Her grandmother taught her the art of Arabian belly dancing. Even though Shakira was hugely popular worldwide, she had not yet achieved her goal of having a significant hit on the U.S. pop charts. So, when she was 20 years old, the singer moved to Miami, Florida, where she taught herself to write English songs to expand her American fan base. Having become the artist who catapulted and promoted Latin music to the international market, her legacy transcends language barriers, establishing Latin music as a global phenomenon. Shakira uses multiculturalism through various cultural music ideas from the U.S., Latin, and middle eastern themes to make songs that would be attractive globally. Her multicultural background led her to bring her Lebanese culture into her music, dance barefoot, and love life. Her pieces often reflect different aspects of her heritage. Her Arabic songs may sound more Spanish than Arabic. Either way, she can blend her folk and rock styles to present them to America.
Born in the Colombian city of Barranquilla, Shakira’s first foray into performing was as a belly dancer. Born to a Lebanese father and a Spanish mother, she took part in both cultures and brought them into her artistry. Being of Lebanese descent, Shakira fell in love with belly dancing at the age of four, and this particular dance style would stick with her even today when she performs for millions of people globally. Belly dancing is a dance form with string movements with your hips and torso. Each middle eastern culture has differences, with the Lebanese adding significant steps with a modern edge. Growing up, she has claimed “that she was born to perform’” and wrote her first poem at the age of four on a typewriter. After getting signed to Sony records at the age of 13, Shakira released records that were flops. It was not until she released her third album. “Pies Descalzos,” which means bare feet, did Shakira become a South American star. On this record, she wrote each song and used Latin rock and standard pop sounds to detail the universal struggles. However, she stayed true to her Latin heritage and used mariachis and percussion to flesh out her sound. Watching Shakira’s “Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos” performance was a great example of her belly dancing and mariachis and percussion in the background to make a sound, all taken from her Colombian cultural values. In this video and song, she only sang in her Spanish heritage and released it to Latin American Countries. It wasn’t until a year later when she released it to the U.S. where It reached number five on the U.S. Billboard Top Latin Albums chart and spawned six hit singles. Written and sung entirely in Spanish and out on tour, she sang her confessional lyrics while belly dancing to many adoring fans. The blend of middle eastern dancing and Spanish songs worked, and her tour was a massive hit. At this time, Shakira was relatively unknown in the United States; but she was starting to get some press and was nominated for a Latin grammy.
As her popularity grew in South America, Shakira rode a wave of Latin performers breaking into the United States, including Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. They wrote and sang songs in English, but the pieces were embedded with traditional Latin sounds. This globalization made the Latin sounds universal in appeal and proved that they could sell records in the states without changing their artistry. However, as Shakira plotted to become an American star, she had to master the English language. With the help of her friend Gloria Estefan, another artist who broke through in America from Cuba in the 1980’s she helped Shakira. According to the website, Pitchford Shakira was “trying to write an album for an English-speaking audience that would somehow preserve the spirit of her trenchant pop-rock — all without forsaking the legion of Latin American fans that made her a pop luminary.” The subsequent release was called “Laundry Service” and proved that you didn’t just need to sing American pop or rock to succeed in the United States. Shakira released her fifth studio album, Laundry Service, on November 13, 2001, by Epic Records worldwide. It was her first English-language album. Laundry Service is Shakira’s first English-language album. Actress Gloria Estefan believed Shakira was well-positioned to succeed in the English-language pop market. For the first video for a song called “Whenever, Whenever,” Shakira is seen belly dancing throughout the clip, mashing together middle eastern, Latin, and American sounds and dances for a worldwide smash hit. Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” is a song from her fifth studio album, Laundry Service, which was her English-language debut. Epic Records released the single as the lead single from the album on October 2, 2001. Gloria Estefan contributed additional lyrics to the song, written, composed, and produced by Shakira and Tim Mitchell. In “Whenever, Wherever,” you’ll find a mix of Latin and world beats heavily influenced by Andean music.
Achieving worldwide success, Shakira continued to record albums in English and Spanish. In an interview with Roling stone magazine, she stated, “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” (Udovitch). Shakira’s rise to fame was before the internet and social media and has made Latin culture accessible to the masses. The exciting thing about Shakira is that she never changed who she was or her sound to become famous in America. It could be argued that singing in English was a concession to Americans, but with songs like “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi, that issue should be mute. Her ability to combine so many different cultures into a sound has made her traditionally Latin sounds accepted globally.
With Shakira’s help, Latino artists now have a more extraordinary voice in the international music industry, where prejudice and even racism still exist. As a result of her pre-crossover albums, Shakira was regarded as one of the most significant Latin stars. While Shakira navigated a tightrope balancing act in the early 2000s when she explored the U.S. market, she remained true to her music while appealing to a broader audience. However, Shakira has reached a general audience with her steadfast dedication to vocalizing her blend of backgrounds. She infused various styles and instruments into her music and lived performances and eluded commercial demands while drawing inspiration from her Colombian and Lebanese experiences. From the beginning, Shakira set the stage with a unique sound set that rocked the industry and the world with her credibility and hinted at her more significant cultural influence on American music. At 20, the singer moved to Miami, Florida, where she learned how to write English songs to expand her American fan base. Since then, her platform has grown into one of the biggest, if not the most prominent, Latino artists due to her blending herself with different cultures. As an artist who brought and promoted Latin music to the world market, her legacy transcended the language barrier and established Latin music as a global phenomenon. Shakira leverages multiculturalism and uses a variety of cultural musical ideas from American and Latin music to create compelling songs for both.
Bibliography
Eric Schaal Twitter Twitter More Articles: Music Published on, 2020. “The 1st Time Shakira Released an English-Language Album.” Showbiz Cheat Sheet, 4 Feb. 2020, https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/the-1st-time-shakira-released-an-english-language-album.html/.
“Shakira.” Q&A;: Shakira: Shakira : Rolling Stone, https://web.archive.org/web/20090207181309/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/shakira/articles/story/5931811/qa_shakira.
Herrera, Isabelia, et al. “Shakira: Laundry Service.” Pitchfork, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/shakira-laundry-service/.
Shakira “Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos” Performance — Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmsPvJxapSc.
McKinney, Kelsey. “What Early Critics Got Really, Really Wrong about Shakira.” Splinter, Splinter, 24 July 2017, https://splinternews.com/what-early-critics-got-really-really-wrong-about-shaki-1793855993.
