SHAKIRA BIOGRAPHY
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born February 2, 1977), known
simply as Shakira, is a Grammy-award winning Colombian
singer-songwriter, musician, composer, record producer, music-video
director, dancer, choreographer, instrumentalist and philanthropist who
has sold over sixty million records worldwide. She has won ten Grammy
awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards and has been nominated for a
Golden Globe. She has been in the music industry since 1990, releasing
her first album the following year. A child prodigy, she began writing
poems and songs at age four and taught herself the guitar at age ten.
The death of a half sibling and her father’s reaction to it inspired her
to write her first full song at age eight.
Little known outside her native Colombia, it wasn’t until 1995
when Shakira took full creative control over her music, a fusion of rock
and dance pop with both deeply personal and biting political lyrics.
The approach yielded two multiplatinum albums. In 2001, she broke
through into the English-speaking market with the release of her first
album in that language, Laundry Service, which she wrote and produced
herself and which has sold 3 million copies in the United States and 13
million copies worldwide. The album’s massive sales came in large part
thanks to the worldwide hit, “Whenever, Wherever” a dance song with
unique Andean instrumentation which soon became one of the highest
selling singles of the 21st century.
Shakira is half Lebanese, one quarter Spanish, and one quarter
Italian. She was born to a Colombian mother of Catalan and Italian
descent, Nidia del Carmen Ripoll Torrado, and a Lebanese father, William
Mebarak Chadid, in Barranquilla, Colombia, where she says she grew up
among the Lebanese and Italian communities. Her father was born in
Lebanon, and immediately after that, his family migrated to New York,
but he soon migrated to Colombia. Shakira, which means “grateful” in
Arabic (شاكرة), is named after her paternal grandmother. She was one of
seven siblings, one of whom is her road manager. Shakira attended a
Catholic school and in second grade was rejected for the school choir
because her vibrato was too strong. She began writing and composing
music at the age of eight and later choreographed dance routines. 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. “That’s
how I discovered my passion for live performance,” she says. One of the
first songs she wrote was called “Tus Gafas Oscuras” (Your Dark
Glasses), which was about her father’s grief over a son who had died in a
car accident.
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
motel 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.
Magia (Magic) was Shakira’s debut album, recorded with Sony Colombia
in 1991, when she was 13. The album did not fare well commercially,
selling less than one thousand copies. After Magia, Shakira released
Peligro (Danger) in 1993. The album was better received than Magia,
though it was considered a commercial failure, due to Shakira’s refusal
to advertise it. Shakira then decided to take a hiatus from recording so
that she could graduate from high school.
Shakira returned to recording in 1995, supported by a new
confessional and Alanis Morissette-oriented persona that affected some
of her next albums, and made her third studio one, Pies Descalzos (Bare
Feet), bring her great fame in Latin America. The singles “Estoy Aquí”
(I’m Here), “Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos” (Bare Feet, White Dreams),
and “Dónde Estás Corazón?” (Where Are You, My Heart?) became pop culture
icons. Pies Descalzos sold more than 4 million copies, which prompted
the release of a remix album, titled simply The Remixes, which sold more
than a million copies. The Remixes also included Portuguese versions of
some of her best-known songs, which were recorded because of her
success in the Brazilian market.
Her fourth album, ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones? (Where Are The
Thieves?), was released in 1998. It was produced by Emilio Estefan,
reportedly cost US$3 million, and had more of a polished sound than Pies
Descalzos. It was even more successful and solidified her as one of the
major Latin artists of the 1990s. She began to gain more fans in
non-Spanish-speaking countries like France, Switzerland, Canada, and
especially the United States. Eight of the album’s eleven tracks became
singles, including “Ciega, Sordomuda”(Blind, Deaf, and Mute), “Moscas En
La Casa” (Flies in the House), “No Creo” (I Don’t Believe),
“Inevitable”, “Tú” (You), “Si Te Vas” (If You Leave), “Octavo Día”
(Eighth Day), and the world-famous “Ojos Así”(Eyes Like Yours).
Shakira’s first live album, MTV Unplugged, was composed of “Estoy Aquí”
and the songs from ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones?.
In 2001, upon the success of ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones?, Shakira
began working on a crossover album to the English language.
Collaborating with Gloria Estefan, Shakira wrote and recorded English
versions of the tracks from ¿Dónde Están Los Ladrones?. However, Shakira
later decided against using translations of older songs for the album
and worked for over a year on new material for the album. The result was
Laundry Service. Although it was created for the intent of selling to
an English language market, the rock and Spanish dance-influenced album
also featured four Spanish songs, including “Que Me Quedes Tú” (I Hope
You Stay With Me). Some critics claimed that Shakira’s English skills
were too weak for her to write in it, but Laundry Service was a success,
with more than 13 million sales worldwide, yielding the worldwide hit
“Whenever, Wherever” and singles “Underneath Your Clothes” (a Canadian
number-one), “Te Dejo Madrid” (I Leave You Madrid), “Objection (Tango)”,
and “The One”. The album and its singles helped to establish Shakira’s
musical presence in the mainstream North American market.
Shakira stayed out of the spotlight for 2 and a half years,
notably changing her hair style. She later announced Oral Fixation 1 and
2 due in 2005. Fijación Oral Vol. 1 was released on June 6, 2005 in
Europe and on June 7, 2005 in North America and Australia. The lead
single “La Tortura” (English: The Torture, featuring Alejandro Sanz)
eventually reached number one in Spain and number twenty-three on the
U.S. Billboard Hot 100. In Canada, “La Tortura” also became the
highest-charting Spanish song when it debuted and peaked at number
twenty-one. Its success across the rest of the world was widespread and
it managed to peak within the top ten of the majority of the charts it
entered. In the U.S., “La Tortura” spent a record twenty-five weeks at
number one on the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart.
Fijación Oral Vol. 1 was simultaneously released in Latin America.
It debuted at number one in Spain and at number four on the U.S.
Billboard 200. It was also well-received in non-Spanish speaking
countries such as Italy, Greece and Germany, where it reached number
one, Austria, where it reached number three, and Canada and Hungary,
where it reached number seven. The second single from Fijación Oral Vol.
1, “No” (English: No), was released in September 2005, and peaked at
number one in Spain and Colombia, for fourteen non-consecutive weeks. So
far, Fijación Oral Vol. 1 has sold five million copies worldwide. Her
third single from “Fijación Oral vol. 1”, Día de Enero, is dedicated to
her fiance, Antonio de la Rúa. This single was number one in some
countries in Latin America, but it hadn’t got success like “La Tortura”
and “No”. She also performed “La Tortura” at the 2005 MTV Video Music
Awards in Miami with Alejandro Sanz. It was the first ever Spanish
performance at the VMA’s.
Shakira’s second English album Oral Fixation Vol. 2 was released
on November 29, 2005 in North America and Australia, and also at this
time in Continental Europe. While “Don’t Bother” was warmly received by
music critics as the album’s lead single, it failed to peak within the
U.S. top 40. The second single “Hips Don’t Lie” (featuring Wyclef Jean)
became her first single to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot
100 and UK Singles Chart. On March 28, 2006, she re-released Oral
Fixation Vol. 2 in the U.S. and released it June 19, 2006. Shakira also
had the collaboration of Argentinian Rock en Español legend Gustavo
Cerati on 2 tracks of both Oral Fixation albums.
In 2000, Shakira started dating Antonio de la Rúa, the son of then
president of Argentina Fernando de la Rúa, a romance that made headline
news throughout Latin America. In March of 2001, he proposed to her.
During Fernando De la Rúa’s presidency, the economy of Argentina
collapsed, leading to the subsequently violent December 2001 riots; in
response to the turmoil, Tower Records decided to no longer sell
Shakira’s albums [6] in Argentina as Antonio was directly involved in
the management of his father’s administration. De la Rúa and Shakira
remain engaged, with future plans to marry.
Shakira is well-known for her dancing in various music videos. The
moves are based on the art of belly dancing, a part of her Lebanese
heritage, which Shakira says she learned as a young teen to overcome her
shyness. The intense training has afforded her a fluidity in her body
movement most seen in the video to her hit “La Tortura”. In an MTV
interview, she said people told her she never moved her chest when
dancing, so she danced with her chest (as well as her usual belly
dancing moves) in the videos for “La Tortura” and “Hips Don’t Lie”.
She has had several belly
dance choreographers, including award-winning Bellydance Superstar
Bozenka. As her MTV ‘The Making of…’ special shows, she worked with
Jamie King for the choreography, but ended up creating most of it
herself.
The band has brought out some fantastic albums which include Time
Out; released in 1996, Samjhi Baschu; released in 1998, Satabdi;
released in 2001, Jungi Nishan; released in 2002; Limited Editiion; also
released in 2002; Pinjada Ko Suga; released in 2004 and On Air;
released in 2007. 
At Present, Phiroj Shyangden has left the band for personal
reasons and now he is in the America. However, Nepali music fans are
missing him as well as waiting for his songs. Likewise, there has been
the adverse effect in his own band as well as in the Nepalese Music
Industry due to his absense. At Present, the band now plays with :
This band mostly focused on the live concerts while making the
music videos because they think that their fans and people can directly
interact with their music and their performance. They are mostly popular
by the songs like "Mercedez Benz", "Pret Ko Nasha", "Maryo Ni Maryo"
etc. Those songs are categorized as the pop and rock music in the
Nepalese Music Industry. Mostly the teenagers and the youths are their
fans as they love the pop and rock music.
