Shakira

Shakira (nee Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll), born 2 February 1977, in Barranquilla, Columbia, is a singer, prolific songwriter, musician, record producer, actress, voice actress (Zootopia, 2016), television personality, television producer, philanthropist, and humanitarian. Known internationally as the “Queen of Latin Music,” she is a multiple Grammy Award winner, multiple Latin Grammy Award winner, multiple Billboard Music Award winner, and MTV Video Music Award winner, as well as the possessor of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and several mentions in the Guinness Book of World Records, among other accolades. Having begun her professional performing career in her native Columbia, Shakira released her first album, Magia (1991) for Sony Music Columbia when she was thirteen years old. Her subsequent Latin recordings include Peligro (1993), Pies Descalzos (1995), and Donde Estan los Ladrones? (1998). Shakira entered the American marketplace in 2001 with her fifth album, the English-language Laundry Service, which would eventually sell over ten million copies. Her subsequent albums, recorded in English or Spanish and sometimes in both languages, have sold in excess of 80 million copies. In 2018, Forbes magazine designated Shakira as the best-selling Latin artist of all time. Along with Laundry Service, Shakira’s other albums include the Spanish-language Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1 (2005), Sale el Sole (2010) and El Dorado (2017). Her English-language releases include Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (2005), She Wolf (2009) and Shakira (2014). As a collaborator, Shakira has worked with Maluma, Wyclef Jean, Rhianna, Pitbull, the Black Eyed Peas, and Beyonce, among others. Shakira is one of the world’s more recently minted global superstars, a categorization that was solidified by her co-headlining the February 2020 Super Bowl halftime show with Jennifer Lopez, her reoccurring involvement with the World Cup, and her role on two nonsequential seasons as one of the judges/coaches on the hit NBC-TV musical competition series The Voice. Subsequently, Shakira acted as both co-creator/co-producer of the 2022 reality competition show Dancing with Myself, where she also acted as a judge. In 1997, Shakira founded the Columbian-based Barefoot Foundation (Pies Fundacion Descalozos). Its mission is “to ensure that every Colombian child can exercise their right to a quality education. Our model targets displaced and vulnerable communities by addressing their unique needs.” Since its establishment, the foundation has created twenty-seven schools and educational spaces in Columbia that have provided both food and education to over 100,000 impoverished children.