Picture this: a month from now, two people are sat talking in a bar. ‘Where were you at New Year’s?’ one asks the other. ‘Oh, I just went round to a friend’s house,’ comes the reply. ‘What about you?’ There is a rather self-satisfied pause before answering: ‘Oh, I spent it with Shakira and 9,999 pals in the grounds of the Emirates Palace hotel.’ A friendship ends, but it was worth it.
2008 has seen some very high profile names take to the stage in Abu Dhabi; but when Shakira rolls into town for the La Rumba New Year’s Eve Party at Emirates Palace, the capital will see something new. Even the star herself is looking forward to her visit, ‘and the fact that I get to bring in the New Year with my fans is all the more exciting,’ she adds.
However, it is not the first time Shakira has been to the UAE. She has played Dubai before and is full of praise for the Emirates. ‘It is one of the most modern and vibrant places in the world today. I was amazed to see the blend of so many unique peoples and cultures that make up the region.’ Of course, fusing cultures is one of Shakira’s pet subjects. Despite being Columbian born, both her name (Shakira translates as ‘thankful’) and her father’s family (from Lebanon) are Arabian in origin. ‘My spoken Arabic is not very impressive,’ she confesses, but her heritage has undoubtedly had an effect upon her music.
‘Arabic dance, music and culture have always played a big part in my artistic influences,’ she admits. ‘I have been belly dancing since I was a young child. It came very naturally to me. It’s in my blood.’ So now we know where that famous hip shimmy derives.
Legend has it that, aged four, upon hearing her first doumbek (an Arabic drum usually used to accompany belly dancers), little Shakira Ripoll leapt onto the tables of a local Middle Eastern restaurant her father frequented, and when egged on by the clapping of the restaurant patrons, gave her first impromptu performance. So was she born to be a star? ‘I think I always felt that I was going to be a public figure since I was a child,’ she says. ‘I started my career as a songwriter when I was eight and my career as a singer when I was 10, so at a pretty early age I knew what I wanted to be.’
You only have to see her perform, whether it’s dancing for a restaurant audience as a child, or in front of 10,000 fans at Emirates Palace, to see that it is something which clearly comes naturally to her. But few remember that Shakira has been a recording artist since she was 14 in her native Columbia. It was 1991 when her first album was released, before a lean spell led to her landing a role in Columbian soap opera El Oasis after she finished school. It wasn’t until aged 18 that her star exploded across South America. ‘Everyone wanted a little piece of me. Brazil wanted a hand, Columbia wanted a foot and it was very hectic,’ she recalls.
Shakira quickly became a hit across the Latin world. ‘It wasn’t a surprise or a drama,’ she says. It happened in a very gradual way, step by step: first in my country, then in Latin America, then in other countries like Spain and Brazil, and now it seems the world.’
In 2001, Shakira released her first English language album, Laundry Service, working alongside another Latin great, Gloria Estefan. At the time the world had embraced the dubious Latina of Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera (who released Spanish language album Mi Reflecto in 2000), but Shakira was the first Latin American-born pop star to truly emerge from within South America.
In 2005, she got her first US number one single, ‘Hips Don’t Lie’. It had been a long time in the making. ‘I was just developing myself as an artist,’ she says, ‘getting to know myself a little better, and I think everything happened at the right moment.’ Of course, pre-Ugly Betty, the difficulty for Latin stars to break into the English speaking world had been well documented. Shakira has been very much a pioneer. To this day, she is the only South American singer to reach number one in the US, Australia, the UK and in the World Charts, and she is already the highest selling Columbian artist of all time with over 60 million records sold. Visit her hometown of Barranquilla and you can see a 30ft-high statue of her strumming a guitar, often with little girls dancing around her effigy.
But Shakira remains sanguine about her rise to fame. ‘I never got really surprised when I first heard my songs on the radio,’ she recalls. ‘It was just like I was seeing my destiny crystalising in front of my eyes.’
Certainly there is no one more appropriate to lead Abu Dhabi’s La Rumba New Year’s Party; there are also few less starry. ‘I generally spend New Year’s at home with my family,’ the likeable singer admits. ‘I have a big family [she has eight stepbrothers] and these holidays are the only time of the year when we can all get together.’
This year will be different, though. ‘This will definitely be my most exciting New Year’s ever,’ Shakira concedes. ‘And my family has agreed to join me in Abu Dhabi, so I will have everything I need: my family and all of my friends.’ Plus 10,000 screaming fans.
Certainly it will be a new experience for Shakira. The capital has never seen anything quite like it either. One thing is for certain: this will be the hippest (sic) New Year ever.
La Rumba NYE Party featuring Shakira is held at Emirates Palace on December 31. Tickets available at www.boxofficeme.com
