Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll is a Colombian singer, songwriter, dancer and record producer. Born and raised in Barranquilla, she began performing in school, demonstrating Latin American, Arabic, and rock and roll influences and belly dancing abilities. Shakira released her first studio albums, Magia and Peligro, in the early 1990s, failing to attain commercial success; however, she rose to prominence in Latin America with her major-label debut, Pies Descalzos, and her fourth album, Dónde Están los Ladrones?...
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth2 February 1977
CityBarranquilla, Colombia
Providing all Latin-American children with the education and early childhood development that they need is in the best interest of all, so it has to be a priority for all of us, not only the government and civil society, but also the business sector.
I never thought it was fair for an 8-year-old child not to be able to afford shoes, or to wander the streets having to beg for money. To know that child's joy would end soon, when they realised there was no future.
I think that we see war as a virtual thing and we even get to believe that bombs fall on top of cardboard cutouts and stuff like that. They don't. They kill real people, real children, real mothers and millions of innocent people.
I just want to grow old with a man who takes care of me, and I want to eventually have kids and want them to be good children to me. Just want to be treated nice and have respect.
We know that many boys and girls leave school because of poverty, because they have to work. However, there are an important number of children who abandon their studies because of the abuses they're subject to by teachers and their own parents.
I'm a firm believer that education is the most efficient tool we have to make people aware and make our children aware, and to protect them from the scourge of the century, which is AIDS
I want some day to be able to love with the same intensity and unselfishness that parents love their children with.
The schools play an important role when it comes down to protecting children against violence.Violence is one of the principal reasons why children don't go to school. It's also one of the causes of the alarming school dropout rates.
I always had the intuition, even as a little child, that I was called for a big project.
I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn, ... I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations.
On New York: This city sounds like jazz.
It's a very interesting process to write in English because all my literary resources come from Spanish, ... I must confess that I felt really handicapped, creatively, when I accepted the proposal to sing in English. ... I thought that I would encounter more difficulties, but everything has come together.
'Elixir' means magical potion, so I wanted to depict the kind of bottle that was used in ancient times, but that looked modern and chic as well. I also wanted it to have a golden tint to evoke the memories of sands and sunsets.
The worst frustration for a singer is choosing a career in making music and then not being able to make music because you're always giving interviews.