Shakira (Endless) 2009

Shakira (Endless) 2009

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born February 2, 1977), known professionally as Shakira is a Colombian 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. She also sings in Classical Arabic.

About Album: It’s been nearly nine years since Shakira made the transition from Colombian sensation to worldwide star with the release of Laundry Service, her first English album. The move also saw her channeling more conventional pop inspirations than her Spanish albums, and even sporting a new blond hairdo. These moves made her more accessible to broader—and by broader I mean North American—audiences, but, in them, she lost some of her charm.
In her two follow-up albums, she continued to make irresistible pop music, but always sounded as if she was trying on someone else’s style. Her forays into R&B were good, but she could do better. Sure, the way she integrated Latin rhythms into her English tunes was fresh, but she wasn’t living up to her potential. The Spanish work she continued to put out during this period always sounded more interesting, but even that wasn’t as good as she could produce. For her latest release, She Wolf, Shakira goes even further from her roots and wanders into electronic-influenced pop, but by doing so she actually sounds more like herself than she has in a while.

Album Details:

Genre: R&B

Producer: Michael Jackson

Language: English

Release date and status: 2009