LOS ANGELES.- Shakira the innovator colombian artisthas been remarkably consistent since beginning his career in the early ’90s. Without a doubt, he toured, released albums, won awards, weaved genre-defying global sounds into his pioneering singles, performed at the halftime show of the Super Bowl and more.
Then things slowed down. Or so it seemed.
In reality, the last few years have not been kind to Shakira. In 2022, after 11 years and two children together, she separated from soccer player Gerard Piqué, causing what she calls the: “dissolution of my family.” She faced charges of tax evasion in Spain; and in November 2023, she received a three-year suspended sentence and paid a fine of 7.3 million euros ($8 million), in addition to previously unpaid taxes and interest.
In Women Don’t Cry AnymoreHer first album new in seven years, Shakira transforms her pain into art: from bachata Monotonous to electro-pop Congratulations and the mega viral Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions. vol. 53 y ms.
“I’ve been through so much these past few years that I literally had to pick up the pieces of myself and put them back together,” Shakira told The Associated Press via Zoom from Miami. “And during that process, I think music was the glue.”
Interview with Shakira
AP: It’s been seven years since your last album, The Golden. What did you learn about yourself, musically, in that time?
SHAKIRA: Well, in those seven years that I have been raising children, I have learned a lot about myself as a mother, as a woman. But I’ve also been making music. It’s just been more sporadic, you know, here and there. Whenever I had the opportunity to release a song, I did it. But I didn’t have time to really work. This time it was a compulsion and a necessity. It was really important for me to be able to express, in and through these songs, so many life experiences and find catharsis, you know, and to be able to find the therapeutic effects of writing and seeing myself back in the studio.
AP: You called Women Don’t Cry Anymore a concept album. What story does it tell?
SHAKIRA: Because there is a lot of diversity in this album (I know it’s a concept album), but it didn’t happen on purpose. No one chooses to go through the kind of life experiences I went through when I was writing and creating this album, you know, life gives you lemons. So what do you do? Make lemonade. So I made songs. But there is a great variety within this album. There is pop, there is afrobeat, there is reggaeton. There are also some regional Mexican ones. Rock. But there is a common thread. And that is based on genuine, authentic life experiences and the process of working through those intense emotions and feelings that I have had to deal with over the past few years.
AP: You’re no stranger to embracing global sounds. On this album, you worked with Grupo Frontera and Fuerza Regida, two regional mexican artists who are taking their music to the global stage. That’s something you know a thing or two about.
SHAKIRA: When I started in this industry, it was predominantly male. It was difficult for a Colombian girl. I had to knock on a lot of doors, just convince a lot. Convince all the guardians, the directors of the radio stations, who would decide in their day, who would like what music was programmed and who would not.
But now it’s different, you know, now people decide for themselves. I think music has been democratized in some way. And that’s why Latin artists have really found a platform for their music not like they did 10 or 20 years ago… And now, Latin artists have many more opportunities. And it is true that regional Mexican artists are also within that group of artists that are now being played on so many more stations in Colombia and other places in the world and here in the United States as well.
Mexico has been a very important part of my career. It is a country to which I owe a lot. And it has simply been a wonderful experience to also be able to collaborate with some Mexican artists on this album. It is my small tribute to Mexican music, to that genre and to the Mexican people.
AP: She Wolf turns 15 this year. As a listener, that album felt like a career change, and so does this one. Do you see parallels?
SHAKIRA: Yes, because it is the rebirth of many, in a way. It is the rebirth of that primordial force that I feel that all women have within ourselves. It is that force that allows us to give birth, to feed our offspring, to ensure the survival of its species, to fight any fight we have to fight.
I had to turn to that Wolf inside me to survive.
I was in sort of fight or flight mode for a while and I think it’s that “wolf” inside of us women today that’s leading society to where it’s going, you know, right now. Women are multitaskers by nature. All. We can actually survive wars and rebuild cities after they are destroyed. So, my life was in pieces after, you know, the dissolution of my family and so many other things that I had to go through.
That’s why this album is called Women no longer cry. Because I feel like women, you know, for years have been sent crying with a script in their hand. And just because women hide our emotions from our children and simply show good manners and accept everything, it is different now. I think that as women we now decide when to cry, when not to cry and how to do it, if we decide to cry. So, it’s like no one has to tell us how to heal.
AP: I haven’t seen anyone refer to this as a divorce album.
SHAKIRA: This is not a divorce album. It is an album that brings together many different life experiences, which captures the transformation of vulnerability into resilience, the empowerment of finding your strength.
It doesn’t just talk about pain; It also speaks of triumph. And that is why these tears are not tears of resentment, anger or simply sadness, but tears of triumph and tears of self-recognition and finding confidence within ourselves.
It is not linear. There are ups and downs, valleys and peaks. And this album is made of all those dynamics.
FUENTE: AP
