Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born: February 2, 1977) known simply as Shakira, شاكيرا in Arabic (English pronunciation: /ʃəˈkɪərə/, Spanish: [tʃaˈkiɾa] or [ʃaˈkiɾa], Portuguese: [ʃaˈkiɾə]) is a Colombian-American 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 twenty 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.
