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
What happens is once you start to understand football, you realise that it's not just about the physical side of the game and chasing after a ball. It's a strategic sport which requires a lot of intelligence. It's a very mental game.
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.
Fame isolates people from reality. That happens to many artists, and I don't want it to happen to me.
I'm lucky to have family around me. Otherwise, I'll be taking the risk of falling in love with myself. But there are always people close to me who I trust, who will scold me and pull my ears if I need it. Fame isolates people from reality. That happens to many artists, and I don't want it to happen to me.
I feel a real sense of duty to use the voice and the platform I've been afforded by my fame to speak out for those whose voices don't get a chance to be heard.
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.
I wanna stay an eternal girlfriend. I want to have my boyfriend's children, but I don't think we need a piece of paper to regulate the game, and we don't have to go through the whole stress of a wedding and suffering to throw a good party.
I am a person who has many dreams. But as soon as I accomplish one, I move on to the next. That's my fatal, absurd nature.
The truth is that I'm more afraid of marriage than of death.