
Shakira was born Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll on February 2, 1977, in Barranquilla, a port city on Colombia's Caribbean coast, into a family with Lebanese, Catalan, and Colombian roots. She wrote her first poem at four and her first song at eight. Her Lebanese heritage gave her the belly dancing that became her stage trademark, a style she first tried as a child after hearing the doumbek, a traditional Arabic drum, at a Middle Eastern restaurant. At ten she won a talent contest on local television and spent the next few years performing around Barranquilla. She signed with Sony Music Colombia at 13, and while her first two albums made little commercial impact, the third set everything in motion.
Pies Descalzos (1995) topped the album charts in eight countries and sold more than five million copies, and Dónde Están los Ladrones? (1998) pushed past seven million worldwide. A Spanish-language MTV Unplugged album became her major breakthrough in the U.S. market in 2000, setting up the crossover that followed. Laundry Service (2001), her first largely English-language album, has sold more than 13 million copies and stands as the best-selling album by a female Latin artist, with lead single "Whenever, Wherever" reaching number one in most countries and number six on the U.S. Hot 100. She wrote or co-wrote every song on the record, a habit she has kept across her entire catalog, writing and recording in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
More than 95 million records sold later, she ranks among the best-selling musicians in the world. "Hips Don't Lie" (2006) became her first Billboard Hot 100 number one, topping charts in more than 55 countries, and "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" (2010), the official song of that year's FIFA World Cup, is the biggest-selling World Cup song of all time. She co-headlined the Super Bowl LIV halftime show with Jennifer Lopez in 2020, drawing more viewers than the game itself. Known as the Queen of Latin Music, she is credited with popularizing Spanish-language music globally and opening the international market for the wave of Colombian stars who followed, from Maluma to Karol G. Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (2024) made her the first woman with number-one albums on Billboard's Latin album charts across four different decades. The live reach matches the catalog: her headlining tours have played hundreds of shows across five continents, from the 120-date Oral Fixation Tour to the El Dorado World Tour. She is one of the few artists who can headline across both language markets, and that dual pull is why Shakira tickets stay in demand whenever she takes a new show on the road.