3/5/2023 0 Comments Laundry service![]() ![]() Sony suggested she recruit Gloria Estefan-the pop powerhouse and wife of her ex-manager-to translate the lyrics of ❽ónde Están Los Ladrones? into an English album for her U.S. In early 2000, Freddy DeMann, the force behind Madonna and Michael Jackson’s careers, took over her management. But it was only a matter of time until she’d have to accommodate two legions of fans-one that worshipped her for her candid, political introspection, and another that demanded she conform.Īfter the release of a Grammy-winning MTV Unplugged album in 2000, Shakira was ready for something new. Through intimate, rhapsodic lyrics, Shakira captured the attention of clever sadgirls across Latin America and its diaspora. On ❽ónde Están Los Ladrones? executive-produced by her then-manager Emilio Estefan, Shakira smashed up mariachi horns and traditional doumbek drums, developing a reputation as the irreverent leader of Latin American rockeras, one who paraded her trumpeting yodel over songs about heartbreak and allusions to government corruption. The albums also served as harbingers of the mutability of Shakira’s pop identity. Both records spawned international tours and hit singles, securing Shakira’s future as a Latin American pop diva. Pies Descalzos sold nearly 4 million copies worldwide, while ❽ónde Están Los Ladrones? went multi-platinum. She recorded the original song “ ❽ónde Estás Corazón?” for the Colombian rock compilation Nuestro Rock the track’s success led her original record label Sony to allow her to write an entire rock album, which would become Pies Descalzos, released in 1995, followed by ❽ónde Están Los Ladrones? in 1998. In 1994, it seemed she’d finally found her calling. and British rock styles, like the Cure, Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith, all while maintaining her childhood love for belly dancing, a product of her Lebanese roots. While her acting career didn’t pan out, she immersed herself in a wide range of U.S. At 15, Shaki moved from her hometown of Barranquilla to the capital of Bogotá, enduring an ill-fated stint on a telenovela. ![]() The records flopped, the former selling less than a thousand copies. Her first two albums, recorded as a young teenager and released only in Colombia, were comprised of lackluster, forgettable pop ballads. She’d learned those lessons the hard way. It gives me freedom.I don’t want to be tied to a specific style and become the architect of my own prison.” As she told Colombian daily El Tiempo in 2001, “Fusion offers me the opportunity to remove any type of label people want to place on me. Long before the Beyoncé collaboration, the World Cup anthem, and the forays into watered-down reggaetón, Shakira Mebarak Ripoll proudly used her versatility in her favor. That clear-eyed intentionality at the beginning of “Underneath Your Clothes” was the crux for her metamorphosis into an international supernova. But we have only begun to challenge these stale tropes-and question the fantasy of “boom” narratives, where Latinx artists appear and disappear every few years based on their legibility to Anglo audiences. ![]() As she told MTV’s Making the Video, “I wanted that scene so badly in the video, because it’s something that is daily bread in my life lately.” Today, listeners around the globe are a bit smarter, less receptive to such overt maneuvers when artists are navigating new audiences. But back then, industry conventions dictated that Shakira be explicit in her approach. It’s unlikely that such a calculated, performative exchange would appear in a Latinx artist’s English-language debut today. As she walks away, the reporter begs, “Oh, but in English!” He asks, “Shakira, Shakira: What’s it like to crossover and sing in English?” The rockera launches into a breathless monologue in Spanish about music’s ability to create a spiritual connection between spectators and performers, about the poetry of music beyond the artificial borders of language. ![]() In the opening scene, a thirsty journalist chases after her through the Palace Theater in Los Angeles, her newly blonde-but still tousled-braids silhouetted under an oversized Brixton cap. The video for “ Underneath Your Clothes” was the Colombian singer’s self-aware introduction to Anglo audiences. Over the next year, Shakira would confront this challenge head-on, embracing the totality of transition. ![]()
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