Shakira’s whirlwind on his world tour: the “madness of the stadiums” and the guest artists he will have in his shows
Mexico City
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Shakira doesn’t stay still, it’s a whirlwind. And not only on stage. Its tireless energy can be seen even before the show, far from the audience.
“I am very excited that I will finally start my first stadium tour in the United States,” Shakira told CNN in Spanish, in the last interview he offered in Mexican territory, after breaking his own assistance brands there and continuing his tour “Women no longer cry, World Tour” in South America. “I’m like Comet Halley,” he says.
Outside, the crowd finished filling the facilities of the stadium where for seventh night already full house, Shakira was presented in the Mexican capital. The RBD group had already registered six concerts in that same place, but now Shakira has overcome it.
Despite the pressure of knowing that it outside 65,000 people were waiting for her, Shakira was still moving from one place to another, to finally sit down for a few minutes.
Here, the highlight of that conversation
On May 13 you start the tour in the United States, well in North America. I understand that concerts are seventeen, you will tell me if there are new dates. But I wanted to know, with what happened in Mexico, that they started with something small and became so big, do you arrive in the United States very safe than this will be there or there is always a nervousness because of the way the public responds?
First of all, I am very excited that I will finally start my first stadium tour in the United States on May 13.
You had never done that.
I have made several tours in the United States but never in stages, it is my first stadium tour, it has become something big, I am very excited. In fact, we are announcing a second stadium in Miami, a second stadium in New York, is madness. I can’t believe the audience’s response. I feel that I will be very well accompanied by my Latin audience and I think there is a great range of fans that have been there for me from “Laundry Service” or even before.
The last time you were there was for “El Dorado”, which was in 2018, so they have passed …
Seven years, yes! I always take a long time between tours. I am like Comet Halley, but slower because it takes me more than four years to make a tour. For me it is a long process, because I intervene in everything I do, I try to participate in everything and, in a certain way, control it. I have to make my own music, I produce my own songs, it takes a long time to do that in the studio and then put together an album, present it to the world and then have to prepare a tour of this size is not simple.
We have worked on this tour for more than a year. I have worked in original music. I have worked to adjust the arrangements of some songs, but some of the other songs that people treasure the way they are, I am trying to bring them in the original form, but we have refreshed their sound.
It has been a challenge musically. Also produce these visuals, which are incredible. We have 45 people working on these visuals, artificial intelligence and CGI technology. I think it has not been done before, it has been a great challenge and it took us a long time to finish it. Many choreographies, two and a half hours of show with a large part of my musical repertoire, of course “Hips Don’t Lie”, “Whenever, Wherever”, “Object”, “She Wolf”, all those songs.
But also the new repertoire, the new songs that are more recent and that the audience continues to discover. There is a wide range of public out there, there are people who have accompanied me for many years, from my first album I made outside Colombia, to the most recent album. Imagine, it has been a long journey and I think that these concerts more than a show are a reunion, a deep reunion between my fans and me.
You have said that for the tour in the United States, you are sure that you will accompany you friends and colleagues. Sure there will be surprises and you will tell me that you can not tell me who will be with you on stage, but give me a list of those names that you dream of having on stage. Give me three names.
I have invited all my friends. I have many friends in the industry. When I am in the study we forge a friendship that lasts forever. I have friends like Alejandro Sanz who is like my brother, Will.i.am, who every time I spend a crisis is seeing how I am, telling me: “Are you okay?” People who have been there for me in good times and not so good. Chris Martin …
Maybe Sting? Because I saw you the other day with him.
Sting went to one of my concerts in Brazil. It was an honor to have it there. But yes, there will be many of my friends appearing. I called them all and everyone said yes, let’s see if they appear. For now I can tell you that Alejandro Sanz will be there, Carlos Vives too. Will.i.am said it will be. Rauw …
Oh really? That will be Hot.
Yes and many more.
One last question because they tell me that it is time for you to go on stage. You arrive (soon) to the United States, to North America, and being a woman of a huge social conscience, how do you see your arrival in the United States when it is a country that is changing both political and socially?
These concerts have a liberating effect and also healer. Not only in me. I feel it every night, I feel that a little injury is closing, because my audience is so loving, but it has so much understanding, so much understanding and so much empathy with everything that happens to me in my day to day.
But I also understand what they are happening. I know what Latinos are happening. I know what we are living in the world. I know sometimes how they treat us and how unfair it is. And I know of our own value.
When someone treats us badly, we need as a community, get stronger and more united to remind us of our own value. And in these concerts I am feeling that a lot. And that is something that my fans have always done for me. They have reminded me who I am.
When I had doubts about myself, when I felt vulnerable, they gave me strength and I hope to do the same for them too, especially at the moment.
