Shakira's All Grace and Talent
Listen to her lyrics. They are a graffiti spray
of raw energy, rebel ventings, and unleashed passions. They bear
the messages of a girl chafing against the norms of society, wearing
her desires like a navel tattoo, ready to love, ready to risk
it all, ready to fly.
This could lead you to believe that Shakira, the
thready-voiced creator and fervent interpreter of these lyrics,
is the quintessential rockera, a bohemian citizen of pop music's
jagged edges. But make no assumptions about the 22-year-old queen
of rock latino. Don't search her songs for ominous hints. There
are no dark Courtney Love stories to be told here. Yes, her music
brandishes a woman-of-the-world authority; but at the end of the
day, after the last song is sung, she goes home to Mami and Papi.
"I am a walking contradiction. I am a cocktail of elements
that come from disparate and distant worlds. These elements, however,
do not fight one another. They coexist in peace. I am both ethereal
and terrestrial," Shakira says, weaving her hands cobralike.
"I don't fight myself. I accept all the contradictions in
me. And they accept one another."
In real life, Shakira is no angst-ridden rock chick. She's happy.
She's healthy. She is the embodiment of her name, which in Arabic
means "woman full of grace." She dwells in a blissful
cocoon of friends and family, including seven half-brothers and
half-sisters. There is no room for a love life, either. ("El
galán de mi vida es mi papá," she says.) She
cherishes the discipline required for stardom, the focus, the
long hours of work. Unlike many artists of her generation, she
is not searching for roots or for an identity. She knows quite
clearly who she is, what she wants, how she's going to get it.
And when it comes, in shimmering bits, she rises to the occasion.
The sultry colombiana, who was named Latin Female Artist of the
Year at the 1998 World Music Awards, seems to be on an ever-intensifying
winning streak. Recently, within a few feverish months, she watched
her fourth album, Dónde Están los Ladrones? (Sony
Latin), reach the number one spot on Billboard's Latin 50; raked
in a Grammy nomination; signed a major deal with Pepsi for a Spanish-language
commercial; graced the cover of Time magazine's Latin American
edition; and embarked on a world promotional tour.
Now she is poised to break into the English-language market with
the help of her new producer, Emilio Estefan, Jr., and one of
her musical idols, Gloria Estefan. The couple has adopted their
fellow Miamian as if she were a little hermana. Gloria was so
impressed by the young trovadora that she agreed to translate
the lyrics for Shakira's English-language debut album. She also
sang the translations onto a practice tape to help Shakira with
diction and phrasing. And she was there in the studio with Shakira
to offer moral support and language tips. "She is just amazing,"
raves Gloria. "Shakira is an old soul."
On January 28, on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Shakira sang in English
for the first time. Gloria, who was the guest host that day, declared
that Shakira's lyrics reminded her of Janis Joplin. USA Today
has called her the "Latina Alanis Morissette." But neither
comparison begins to describe the spirits that dwell in Shakira
Mebarak, child of the coastal Barranquilla, born to a Lebanese
jeweler father who bequeathed to her a gift for writing and a
doting mother who taught her to read and write by age three.
Even as a tiny girl, Shakira seemed the consummate artist, scribbling
poems to her parents, learning the ancient dance moves of her
Arab ancestors, painting and sculpting, singing her prayers at
night. She made her first album at 13. It was as if she knew her
destiny, to break the mold of Latin American female pop singers
by age 19. That's how old she was when she released her landmark
recording, Pies Descalzos, an eloquently written hybrid of rock,
pop, and Latin rhythms that sold 3.6 million copies worldwide.
By Liz Balmaseda
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