Best Known As: Music Performer

Gist:  Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born: February 2, 1977) known simply as Shakira, ?????? in Arabic (, or ,? ) is a Colombian-Lebanese singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer and philanthropist who emerged as a musical prodigy in the music scene of Latin America in the early 1990s. Born and raised in Barranquilla, Colombia, Shakira revealed many of her talents in school as a live performer, demonstrating her vocal ability with rock and roll, Latin and Middle Eastern influences with her own original twist on belly dancing. Shakira is a native Spanish speaker and also speaks fluent English, Portuguese and Italian.

After a series of commercial flops with local producers on her first two albums and little-known outside Colombia, Shakira decided to produce her own brand of music: in 1995 she released Pies Descalzos, which brought her great fame in Latin America and Spain and marked Shakira as a musical phenomenon. But 1998's ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones? remains most essential album of the artist that gained her highest critical success from influential issues such as Rolling Stone, All Music Guide and Billboard. Since then she has gained many fans in non-Spanish-speaking countries, especially in the United States. In 2001, and aided by heavy promotion of the music video, "Whenever, Wherever", she broke through into the English-speaking world with the release of Laundry Service, which sold over thirteen million copies worldwide. Four years later, Shakira released two album projects called Fijación Oral Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation Vol. 2. Both reinforced her success, particularly with the most successful song in the twenty-first century to date, "Hips Don't Lie". Currently, Shakira is working on final touches of her upcoming eighth studio album that will be released in late 2009.

She has won two Grammy Awards, seven Latin Grammy Awards, and has been Golden Globe-nominated. She is also the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time,and the second most successful female Latin singer having sold 50 million albums worldwide, according to BMI. Additionally, she is the only artist from South America to reach the number-one spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, Canadian Hot 100, the Australian ARIA chart, and the UK Singles Chart.

Shakira is to be awarded with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which will make her the first South American to receive this honor.

Life Facts:  Shakira was born on February 2, 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia. She is the only child of Nidya del Carmen Ripoll Torrado, who is of Italian and Spanish ancestry, and William Mebarak Chadid who is an American born

of Lebanese descent.

, Colombia]]

Shakira means "thankful" in Arabic. It is the feminine form of the name Shakir. Her second name, Isabel, is also that of her paternal grandmother, meaning "my God is my oath", "my God's house" or "my God is abundance", and her name is even and simply a Spanish given name for Elizabeth. Her second surname name Ripoll is Catalan. She spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located in northern Colombia. Shakira is noted for her keen intellect and is reported to have an IQ of 140.

Shakira wrote her first poem, entitled "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. At the age of eight, after an older half-brother was killed in a motorcycle accident, Shakira wrote her first song entitled "Tus gafas oscuras" ("Your dark glasses"). The inspiration came from her father, who for years after the accident 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. At school, she says she had been known as "the belly dancer girl", as she would demonstrate a number she learned every Friday at school.

When she was eight, Shakira's father declared bankruptcy. While the details were sorted out, she stayed with relatives in Los Angeles. On returning to Barranquilla, she was shocked to find that much of what her parents owned had been sold; as she later said "In my childish head, this was the end of the world." To show her that things could be worse, her father took her to a local park to see orphans who lived there, sniffing glue. 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 Sony Colombia 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.

In 2000, Shakira started dating Antonio de la Rúa, the son of then president Argentina Fernando de la Rúa, a romance that made headline news throughout Latin America. In March 2001, he proposed to her. De la Rúa and Shakira remain engaged. She currently lives in The Bahamas.

Shakira's future mother-in-law Inés Pertiné claimed the wedding would take place in September 2007 in the mansion which Shakira owns in the Dominican Republic, but the wedding did not happen. She also said that Shakira has already ordered Argentine designer María Pryor to design her wedding dress.Terra Actualidad.

[ "Shakira se casa en septiembre en su residencia de República Dominicana"] (Retrieved , Fernando de la Rúa All this was denied by Shakira herself in Mexico.

In June 2007, Latin American media speculated that the couple had finally split up and that Shakira was involved romantically with Army Specialist Erik Pepen since both were seen in a Los Angeles disco. This rumor was immediately denied by Shakira's assistants, stating that she was invited by Penélope Cruz, who later introduced Erik Pepen to Shakira. On the previous days, Shakira and Antonio were seen in a restaurant in New York City, facing and denying the rumors one more time.

Shakira is intensely interested in world history. She frequently studies the history and languages of the countries she visits. After her Oral Fixation tour ended in summer 2007, Shakira audited a class in Los Angeles at UCLA, on the 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.

According to BMI, Shakira is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, having sold more than 50 million albums worldwide.

According to Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, "Hips Don't Lie" was the most-played pop song in a single week in American radio history. It was played 9,637 times in one week.

Shakira became the first artist in the history of the Billboard charts to earn the coveted number one spots on both the Top 40 Mainstream and Latin Chart in the same week doing so with "Hips Don't Lie".

Career Facts:  Shakira stayed out of the spotlight for over two years. Many possible dates of release were delayed and she announced the ??Oral Fixation?? project in early 2005 with Rick Rubin as the executive producer. Fijación Oral Vol. 1, the first album of the project, was released on June 3, 2005 in Ireland, on June 6, 2005 in Europe, and on June 7, 2005 in North America, Latin America and Australia. The lead single from the album, La Tortura (U.S. #23), which features the Spanish balladeer Alejandro Sanz, was released as a single in April and achieved large-scale success in different radio and chart formats. It spent a record of twenty-five weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart. Shakira became the first artist to perform a Spanish language song at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Contrary to low expectations, Fijación Oral Vol. 1 was very well received by the public. It debuted at number four on the ??Billboard 200?? chart on the week of June 15. According to that publication, the album sold 157,000 copies in its first week of release in the U.S., becoming the highest debut ever for Spanish language albums. In Latin America, on the very day of its official release in Venezuela, it went Platinum, in Colombia, triple Platinum and in Mexico, it was sold-out. The album sold over one million copies in three days. Four other singles were released following ??La Tortura??: No (U.S. Latin #11), Dia De Enero (Colombia #1), La Pared (Spain #1) and 2007?s Las De La Intuición, which became the final single reaching #1 position in Spain and Argentina for several weeks and featuring Shakira with a bright purple wig and black tie in some hyper-sexualized scenes in her music video with Jaume de Laiguana as the director.

On February 8, 2006, Shakira won her second Grammy Award. She was awarded in the category of Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album (Fijación Oral Vol. 1). Shakira received four Latin Grammy Awards on November 2, 2006: Record of the Year and Song of the Year for ??La Tortura??, Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for Fijación Oral Vol. 1. She lost the award for Best Short Form Music Video for "La Tortura" to Calle 13. Fijación Oral Vol. 1 sold over 4 million copies worldwide.

Before the release of Oral Fixation Vol. 2 Shakira appeared at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2005 in Lisbon, Portugal, where she performed Don't Bother, the lead single from the album, just minutes before winning an award in the category of Best Female Artist.



Oral Fixation Vol. 2 was released on November 29, 2005 in North America, Australia, and continental Europe. The album debuted at number five on the U.S. ??Billboard 200?? Albums chart. Two tracks from the album, How Do You Do and Timor, sparked some controversy at the time of its release in the Muslim countries. The cover of the album that features Shakira in the image of Eve with forbidden fruit was also considered controversial, and had to be altered in several countries. ??Don't Bother?? failed to peak within the top 40 in the United States (U.S. #42). In the beginning of 2006, Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean joined Shakira to record the second single for the album. "Hips Don't Lie", the biggest hit of the 21st century, became Shakira's first number one single on the U.S. ??Billboard Hot 100??, in addition cracking number one in at least 55 countries. Shakira and Wyclef Jean also recorded Bamboo version of this song for official theme of FIFA World Cup 2006. Shakira along with Red Hot Chili Peppers received the most number of nominations for the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards with "Hips Don't Lie", but she won only the award for Best Choreography. Shakira also released the third and the last single "Illegal" featuring Carlos Santana, that reached top positions in some European countries and in the dance charts in the U.S. On February 10, 2007, Shakira performed on the 49th Grammy Awards for the first time ever and earned the nomination Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Hips Don?t Lie" with Wyclef Jean. Finally, Oral Fixation Vol. 2 sold over 8 million copies worldwide.

Shakira embarked on her fourth longest tour, the Oral Fixation Tour, in June, 2006. The tour had 125 shows between June 14, 2006 and July 9, 2007. She performed on 5 continents: Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and Africa with the worldwide audience of over 2.5 million people. During this tour, Shakira performed a free concert in Mexico City on May 27, 2007 with over 210,000 in attendance. This concert sets the record for the highest attendance of any concert in Mexican history. Shakira also performed on July 9, 2006 at the FIFA World Cup final in Germany - a great honor and the most watched sports television program worldwide with 3.5 billion viewers. On November 12, 2007, the "Oral Fixation Tour (DVD) was released (November 13 in North America). It is also available in High Definition Blu-Ray format.

Shakira wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the music for two new songs that are featured in the movie Love in the Time of Cholera, based on the acclaimed novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Marquez. García Marquez himself asked Shakira to write the songs. The songs are called "Pienso en ti", a song from Shakira's breakthrough album Pies Descalzos, "Hay Amores" and "Despedida".

All the songs can be downloaded via iTunes, as well as the score by Antonio Pinto.

It was rumored that the song would also be nominated for an Academy Award, but it was not, with a source calling the fact that it was left off the ballots the Academy's "worst snub."