Shakira in an interview with the BBC: being an immigrant in the US “means living with constant fear”
Image source, Shakira
- Author, Mark Savage
- Author’s title, BBC music correspondent
In the bowels of the Miami Hard Rock Stadium, a note is stuck at the door of the Shakira Production Office.
“Please, come back later … unless you are in flames.”
The pink note, handwritten, suggests a fully understandable level of stress for the team organized by the largest stadium tour of the year.
With 64 concerts exhausted in America, Shakira has played for more than two million fans.
“I have worked for more than a year, polishing every detail of the show, so this is an incredible reward,” says the star to the BBC.
There are no nerves or fighting after racks before the concert in Miami … and no one is on fire.
The atmosphere is quiet and professional. The dancers stretch in the halls, the seamstresses sew crystals in the Catsuits and guitar technicians check and review the affinations.
If you stay for a while, you will discover some surprising data of the tour.
“We travel with two washing machines and two dryers, which we connect at each headquarters,” says the costume head, Hannah Kinkade, who has almost 300 costumes to take care of.
Each attire must be renewed before a new show, he says, because “Shakira dances with great intensity and the dancers too.”
“The dancers wear both their shoes, that we have to repain them every morning.”
The stage director, Kevin Rowe, shows us the dark corridors under the stage, where the team has secret reserves of Gatorade and Café Cold to survive the suffocating heat of Miami.
“Or it is very hot or it rains a lot,” he says about working in an outdoor show. “But that is the disadvantage of living in the underworld.”
Perfectionist Chief
At 14:30, the band begins their sound test. Shortly after 15:00, Shakira arrives with her hips that they do not lie, escorted by the police, and joins the team on stage.
Dressed with chopped silver jeans and a white -free white shirt, you can’t help dancing while evaluating the place of the night.
“I came here for Beyoncé’s concert and was impeccable, so they are better to sound like this,” he jokes with the team.
Shakira releases the joke with a wink, but there is something that everyone recognizes between racks: the boss is a perfectionist.
“When it is on, it is lit,” says Main Darina Littleton.
“When he enters, he is ready, his character is ready, he is delivered to the top.”
“She knows what she wants, and if she doesn’t get it, she will get it in one way or another,” says musical director Tam Mitchell, who has played with Shakira since the 90s (even wrote the flute riff in “luck”).
“It is very meticulous with every aspect of the show: the sound, the visual, the lighting, the bracelets, everything. It’s incredible. I don’t know how it does.”
Image source, Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
The obsession pays off.
The Shakira concert consists in two and a half hours of musical drama: an uninterrupted parade of bilingual successes, 13 changes of costumes and constant movement.
Interprets a dance of the belly of Lebanese inspiration during “eyes like”; A tribal routine with knives to present Whenever, wherever; Strongly hits a Flying V guitar during Objection (tango); And it makes the public howl and rebuild with an electrifying version of She Wolf.
Successful
The tour is titled “Women no longer cry” in honor of Shakira’s last album, inspired by some of the most intense personal disorders and disorders that have ever lived.
Her 11 -year relationship with the footballer Gerard Piqué broke, at the same time that her father underwent emergency brain surgery, and the Spanish authorities accused her of fiscal fraud for 14.5 million euros (US $ 16.8 million), where she finally reached an extrajudicial agreement.
“Many of you know that the last years have not been the easiest to me,” he says on stage. “But who doesn’t fall from time to time, right?”
“What I have learned is that a fall is not the end, but the beginning of an even better path.”
More specifically, the turbulence was promoted to a creative outburst that put it again in the center of cultural conversation after seven years of musical silence.
In 2023, BZRP Music Sessions Vol. 53a song created with the Argentine producer Bizarrap, was full of darts aimed at Piqué and his new girlfriend (“You changed a rolex for a casio”) and won the Song of the Year award in the Latin Grammy.
He continued with the theme in a series of successful simple ones such as the sarcastic “I congratulate you” and “TQG”, a duet with the Colombian star Karol G, which has accumulated 1.3 billion reproductions in Spotify.
“It’s a great inspiration for women,” says a fan, with hairy wolf ears, shortly before the show. “He has done everything. She is power.”
Image source, Getty images
Shakira’s commitment to the show is such that he wants our interview to be after the stage. So, shortly after midnight, he leaves his dressing room wearing more fresh than a field of margaritas.
“I warn you that you may not make much sense right now,” he says laughing. “I’m still recovering.”
“Today was very hot and moisture. So when it is like that, or there is altitude, it is a great challenge … but it is worth it.”
What happens when it is tired or sick?
“To set up a spectacle of this size and be held every night, it doesn’t matter if you are sad, if you had a bad day, if you are sick or if you have cough; you simply have to do your best and, miraculously, get it to happen.”
“And adrenaline, in fact, does not let me feel exhaustion or how demanding it can be. It helps you overcome it.”
Learn from Leonard Cohen
Playing in Miami was particularly significant, he says, because it is the city he moved as a young man in the hope of making his way in the Western pop market.
By then, it was already a star in Colombia, but I knew that international success meant singing in English. The only problem was that I had never learned it.
“I was only 19 when I moved to the US, like many other Colombian immigrants who arrive in this country in search of a better future,” he says.
“And I remember that it was surrounded by Spanish-English dictionaries and synonym dictionaries, because at that time I did not have Google or Chatgpt to (help). So everything was very precarious.”
“And then I went into poetry and began to read some of Leonard Cohen, Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan, trying to understand how English works in song composition. I think that’s how I became good in this.”
Lately, he has been reflecting on these experiences, his acceptance in the US and how that contrasts with the attitude of the Government of Donald Trump towards immigrants.
By accepting Grammy for the best Latin pop album earlier this year, he approached the situation directly.
“I want to dedicate this award to all my immigrant brothers and sisters in this country. They are loved, they are worth it and I will always fight with you,” he said.
How do you feel, I ask, be an immigrant in the US today?
“It means living with constant fear,” he says. “And it is painful to see it.”
“Now, more than ever, we have to remain united. Now, more than ever, we have to raise our voice and make it very clear that a country can change its immigration policies, but treatment of all people must always be human.”
It is a overwhelming statement, pronounced in English and Spanish, when Shakira goes directly to his Latin American fans.
That connection is the basis of the success of his tour: his fans have grown with Shakira and are reflected in it.
Shakira and their children
In Miami, the public covers generations: mothers and daughters sing in unison successes of the 90s as “bare feet, white dreams”, and dance to the rhythm of a Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) To celebrate.
Therefore, the peak of the show comes during “acrostic”, the tender ballad that Shakira wrote for his children, in which he promised that he would remain strong after the separation of Piqué.
While singing, Sasha (12) and Milan (10) appear on the video screens doing a duet with their mother.
“My heart melts every time I see them on that screen and listen to their voice,” the star acknowledges. “They are all for me. They are my engine and the reason I am alive. So having them every night on stage is a beautiful moment.”
Image source, Getty images
This is the first time that children are old enough to see their mother act in concert, and she confesses that they have feelings found in this regard.
“When I have a concert, they stress a little because they want everything to go perfect for me,” he says.
“They are always worried, like: ‘Mom, how did you fall? Did you fall? Are you okay?’
“And I try to show you that there is no perfect concert. It’s okay to make a mistake.”
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