Shakira

Shakira on the photoshoot of her brand new album. Taken by Mario Testino.

Shakira Mebarak Ripoll mostly known only as Shakira, was born in Medellín, Colombia in 1977. The star found success after her studio album "Dónde Están Los Ladrones?" in 1996 when the title track became a hit for the Colombian star internationally and skyrocketted her success. After a successful era, Shakira then was reached out by Gloria and Emilio Estefan to do the crossover with her album "Laundry Service" which became an even bigger success for the star with the lead single "Whenever, Wherever" that peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and rose Shakira's stardom to a major audience.

Shakira's first #1 hit single was her massive hit "Hips Don't Lie" from her album "Oral Fixation" that also was a success for the star both in the international market and in South America with the release of the same album in Spanish, "Fijación Oral" where the single "La Tortura" was a massive hit and even in the US, the song reached the #21 position on the Hot 100 being Shakira's biggest spanish song in the chart.

Many years after Shakira's success, the star opted to sign with the label Blood Entertainment in mid-2016. The label had signed famous singers like Kesha and Madonna so it was a safe bet for the star. But everything went wrong once Shakira released her album "**Chrysanthemum**" which is until now, Shakira's biggest commercial underperformance. The era started in a bright note with her lead single "**Utopia**" which was co-written by Lorde, that made Shakira earn her first top 10 in years as it entered the Hot 100 chart at #8 with this being her highest peak. The follow up single "**On My Way**", despite of its sales, could manage to reach the top 10 at #10 and this was the last single from the era as it was abruptly ended by the label and Warner Music Group due to the big underperformance that the star had with the album. The album reached the #4 position on the Billboard 200 and has so far sold only 77K units since it's release in 2016.

The whole era was an underperformance for Shakira, which made her be in in a $1M debt with Warner Music Group and was in danger of being dropped. To Shakira's fortune, Belinda stepped in and payed the $1M debt and helped Shakira to rebrand herself. The project "**Chrysanthemum: In The Dawn**" begun and Shakira's career started to be fixed. Belinda then invited fellow label mate, Brendon Urie, to the production and writing of the album and they came up with Shakira's biggest hit to date, **"Damn! I'm Fallin' (In Love)"** that was released as the lead single from the re-release and featured Brendon Urie which was just beginning his career as a solo artist at that time. The song then went to become a hit for both singers, making it the first Shakira track to reach the top 5 on iTunes at #4 and debuted at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 later that week with more than 250K units sold making it a big success for the star in comparison to her other singles. The song then got to reach the #8 position on the Hot 100 and has so far sold more than 1.5M untis worldwide making it Shakira's biggest hit. The song was added now onto Brendon's debut album, "**Love Lost In Vegas**" due to Shakira's label canceling the re-release and moving onto a new project. The re-release also had two more singles, "Sweet Ecstasy" and "Me & You" which only were wrong moves for the star as both songs didn't reach any type of certification or even top 20.

Shakira then went on releasing her latest album "**Classic**" which is a cover album from classic songs sung by Edith Piaf to Frank Sinatra. The standard edition of the album was released in the beginning of 2017 and made Shakira earn a top 10 album with underwhelming sales. Shakira was then dropped by Blood Entertainement and re-signed to Republic Records. With Republic Records, Shakira released her "**Classic (Deluxe Edition)**" as a surprise to her fans with the lead single "**When We Were Young**" that peaked at #14 on the Hot 100 and the album has now reached the #5 position on the Billboard 200 this passing week. As of now, this has become Shakira's biggest album, selling now 445K units so far worldwide and it's expected to be Shakira's first RIAA Gold Certificated album soon. It also made Shakira earn the record of the "Best Selling Jazz Album" and the "Most Viewed Special" with her "**Shakira and the Magic of Jazz**" special that had a 3M viewer rating.

Shakira's now in works of her third album now with it being Pop driven. More news to be revealed soon.