Sunday, September 1, 2013
SHAKIRA ISABEL MEBARAK RIPOLL (born February 2,
1977), known as Shakira, is a Colombian singer-songwriter,
dancer, record producer, choreographer, and model. Born and raised in Barranquilla,
she began performing in school, demonstrating Latin, Arabic,
and rock and roll influences andbelly 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 (1996),
and her fourth album, Dónde Están los Ladrones? (1998).
Shakira
entered the English-language market with her fifth album, Laundry
Service (2001), which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
Its lead single, "Whenever, Wherever", became the best-selling
single of 2002. Her success was solidified with her sixth and seventh
albums Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (2005),
the latter of which spawned the best-selling song of the 21st century, "Hips
Don't Lie". Shakira's eighth and ninth albums, She Wolf (2009)
and Sale el Sol (2010), received critical praise but suffered
from limited promotion due to her strained relationship with label Epic
Records. Her official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, "Waka Waka
(This Time for Africa)", became the biggest-selling World Cup song of all
time. With over 500 million views, its music video is the sixth
most-watched video on YouTube. Since 2013, Shakira has served as a
coach on the American version of The Voice, although she
temporarily left the series during the fifth season.
Shakira
has won many awards including five MTV Video Music Awards,
two Grammy Awards, ten Latin Grammy Awards, seven Billboard
Music Awards, twenty-eight Billboard Latin Music Awards and has
been Golden Globe-nominated. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame, and she is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, having sold
over seventy million albums and fifty million singles.\ Her
U.S. album sales stand at 9.9 million. Outside of her work in the
music industry, Shakira is also involved in philanthropic activities through
charity work and benefit concerts, notably her Pies Descalzos
Foundation, her performance at the "Clinton Global Initiative"
created by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and her invitation to the
Oval Office by President Barack Obama in February 2010 to discuss
early childhood development.
Shakira was born on February 2, 1977 in Barranquilla,
Colombia. She is the only child of Nidia Ripoll and William Mebarak Chadid. Her
paternal grandparents emigrated fromLebanon to New York City, where her
father was born. From her mother, Nidia Ripoll, she has Spanish (Catalan and Castilian)
and Italian descent. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's
previous marriage. Shakira spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a
city located in northern Caribbean coast of Colombia. Shakira wrote her first
poem, titled "La Rosa De Cristal" ("The Crystal Rose") when
she was only four years old. As she was growing up, she was fascinated watching
her father writing stories on a typewriter, and asked for one as a
Christmas gift. She got her wish at age seven and continued writing poetry.
These poems eventually evolved into songs. When Shakira was two years old, an
older half-brother was killed in a motorcycle accident and at the age of eight,
Shakira wrote her first song, titled "Tus gafas oscuras" ("Your
dark glasses"), which was inspired by her father, who for years wore dark
glasses to hide his grief.
When Shakira was four, her father took her to a local Middle
Eastern restaurant, where Shakira first heard the doumbek, a traditional
drum used in Arabic music and which typically accompanied belly
dancing. She started dancing on the table, and the experience made her
realize that she wanted to be a performer. She enjoyed singing for schoolmates
and teachers (and even the nuns) at her Catholic school, but in the second
grade was rejected for the school choir because her vibrato was too
strong. The music teacher told her that she sounded "like a
goat". At school, she says she had been known as "the belly
dancer girl", as she would demonstrate every Friday at school a number she
had learned. "That's how I discovered my passion for live
performance," she says. To instill gratitude for her upbringing in
Shakira, her father took her to a local park to see orphans who lived there.
The images stayed with her and she said to herself "one day I'm going to
help these kids when I become a famous artist."
Between the ages of ten and thirteen, Shakira was invited to
various events in Barranquilla and gained some recognition in the area. It
was at about this time that she met local theater producer Monica Ariza, who
was impressed with her and as a result tried to help her career. During a
flight from Barranquilla to Bogotá, Ariza convinced SonyColombia
executive Ciro Vargas to hold an audition for Shakira in a hotel lobby. Vargas
held Shakira in high regard and, returning to the Sony office, gave the
cassette to a song and artist director. However, the director was not overly
excited and thought Shakira was something of "a lost cause". Vargas,
not daunted, was still convinced that Shakira had talent, and set up an
audition in Bogotá. He arranged for Sony Colombia executives to arrive at the
audition, with the idea of surprising them with Shakira's performance. She
performed three songs for the executives and impressed them enough for her to
be signed to record three albums.
Shakira
is a native Spanish speaker who speaks fluent English and Portuguese, as well
as some Italian, French, Catalan and Arabic. Shakira is
a Roman Catholic, and met Pope John Paul II in 1998. She is
interested in world history, and she frequently studies the history and
languages of the countries she visits.After her Oral Fixation tour ended in the
summer of 2007, Shakira attended a summer school class in Los Angeles at UCLA Extensions,
where she took courses in History of Western Civilization. She used her middle
and last names, Isabel Mebarak, and told the professor she was visiting from
Colombia so as to avoid being recognized as a celebrity. Shakira is a
cousin of model and 2005–2006 Miss Colombia, Valerie Domínguez.. In an
interview on The Paul O'Grady Show, she referred to herself as
a mutt due to her diverse ancestry, which she noted as a theme behind
her song "Gypsy".
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