Shakira

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was born on 9th of February 1977 at Barranquilla, Colombia to the couple of a Colombian mother and a Lebanese father.Shakira was hugely influenced by her father who had an Arabic background. Her father was a writer. From her childhood everyone could found out the talent and interest she had towards music. When she was 10 years old she won the local and national talent contests. At the age of only 13, she went on to make a huge contract with Sony in Colombia. As a result of this her debut album `Magia` was released which contained songs written by her between the ages of 8 and 13. When `Magia` got released, Shakira captured the hearts of all Colombia and later she was chosen to represent Columbia at the OTI Fesival in Spain. But she was not allowed to participate because at that time she was under 16 years. Therefore Shakira recorded her second album `Peligro`. After that she took a break from her music and concentrated on her studies. She passed her graduation from high school when she was 15 years old. After her return to music she recorded `Pies Descalzos` which became a great hit and sold almost four million copies worldwide. Within a few months of this Shakira was an international figure. She toured for 2 years just playing her songs to audiences, worldwide. `Pies Descalzos` was so liked by all that it sold more than 900,000 copies only in Brazil alone. Then Shakira recorded remixes for her Brazilian fans in Portuguese. She started her very own style of music which is acombination of pop and rock. Her style of music resulted in `Donde Estan los Ladrones` which was a collection of several hits. Shakira then appeared on the cover of Time Magazine with other dozens of female Latin singers in an article named `Era of the Rockera`. Shakira was also made the goodwill ambassador by the Colombian government. That year in May, she was declared as the Latin Female Artist of the Year at the World Music Awards in Monaco. Her next ambition is to capture the English market. Shakira is the most outstanding singer/ songwriter in the whole of Latin America and she has already captured the hearts and imagination of her audiences