Shakira — Biography

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll is a Colombian musician and composer who has transformed the global music industry and played a crucial role in bringing Spanish-language music to international audiences. Throughout her career, she has earned four Grammy Awards and fifteen Latin Grammy Awards, with three of those being Song of the Year honors. She began her professional recording career with Sony Music Colombia at just 14 years old. Her initial efforts, the albums Magia (1991) and Peligro (1993), did not achieve commercial success, but she found her breakthrough with Pies Descalzos (1995) and Dónde Están los Ladrones? (1998). When she transitioned into English-language music with Laundry Service (2001), her fifth album, the project became a massive worldwide phenomenon, selling more than 15 million copies and standing as the highest-selling album ever released by a female artist from Latin America. Her trajectory continued upward through subsequent Spanish-language releases including Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 (2005), Sale el Sol (2010), El Dorado (2017), and Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (2024), each reaching the top position on the Billboard Top Latin Albums rankings and establishing her as the only female artist to achieve number-one albums spanning four separate decades. Her English recordings Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (2005), She Wolf (2009), and Shakira (2014) all attained platinum status across multiple nations. She has produced an extensive catalog of chart-topping hits and successful tracks, including "Estoy Aquí", "Ciega, Sordomuda", "Ojos Así", "Whenever, Wherever", "Underneath Your Clothes", "Objection (Tango)", "La Tortura", "Hips Don't Lie", "Beautiful Liar", "She Wolf", "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)", "Loca", "Rabiosa", "Can't Remember to Forget You", "Dare (La La La)", "La Bicicleta", "Chantaje", "Te Felicito", "Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53", and "TQG". She participated as a mentor on two separate seasons of The Voice American television program (2013–2014), contributed voice acting to the animated feature Zootopia (2016), and both created and served as judge for the dancing competition series Dancing with Myself (2022). Having sold approximately 125 million albums globally, she ranks among music's most commercially successful performers. Widely recognized as a "global phenomenon" with influence that "extends worldwide", she functions as