The Life of Shakira | Brut

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She’s a rocker at heart who became a legend of Latin pop. She fights for children’s right to education. She came close to losing her voice. This is Shakira.
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was born on February 2, 1977, in Barranquilla, Colombia. Her father is Lebanese and her mother is Colombian. At 4, she started writing poems that would later become songs. At 13, she landed a recording contract, but her first two pop albums flopped. At 18, she released “Pies Descalzos,” a pop-rock album she produced herself, which was an instant hit in Latin America. At 22, she became the first Latina solo act to record an MTV Unplugged album in Spanish. Two years later, she released her first bilingual album “Laundry Service,” where most songs were written both in English and Spanish. At this point she integrated her Arabic origins in her music, and belly-dancing became her trademark move.
At 33, she was picked to write the official song of the South Africa World Cup. “Waka Waka (Song for Africa),” recorded with the Cape Town band Freshlyground, remains to this date the most streamed World Cup song of all time. While filming the song’s video, she met her partner, Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué. At 40, after she had a hemorrhage in her vocal chords, she was barely able to speak and thought she may never sing again.
Eventually getting her voice back felt like divine intervention, she said. On her 43rd birthday, she co-headlined the halftime show of the Super Bowl with Jennifer Lopez. “I'm feeling many things. If someone had told me when I was living in Barranquilla, Colombia, that I was going to be here singing in the Super Bowl, which is, I think, one of the most important global events, maybe I wouldn't have believed it. But here we are. It's reality,” she said.
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