Concours 20 minutes shakira biography

Shakirawas already a pop superstar in Latin America when her first English-language album, Laundry Service, hit the international charts in The exotic beauty, whose name means "woman full of grace" in Arabic, draws on rock'n'roll, her mum's Colombian roots and her father's Lebanese culture as the inspiration for her award-winning career.

"Somehow I'm a fusion of all those passions," she says of her multicultural heritage, "and my music is a fusion of elements that I can make coexist in the same place, in one song."

Shakira's childhood and early career

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was born February 9, , to jewellers William and Nidia in Barranquilla, a town on Colombia's Caribbean Coast.

As a child, she seemed destined for showbiz, learning how to belly dance at four, writing her first song aged eight, and playing the guitar at 11 all without formal lessons. The aspiring star began entering ta