Columbian Gold

“I love New York, ” sighs Shakira Mebarak, gazing out the van window at Manhattan’s broken skyline. “This city,” she says, grasping for one of her curiously poetic metaphors, “sounds like jazz.”

Driving in from John F. Kennedy airport, the first lady of Latin pop is in a voluble mood. Whereas any ordinary celebrity would take this opportunity to complain about the traffic or get on the cell phone to her favorite stylist, Shakira is luxuriating in her favorite topic: Bono. Not one for small talk, she weighs in with a Big Question. “Does he believe in God?” she asks. Although the question we should perhaps be asking is, “Does God believe in Bono?”, she is pleased to learn that, indeed, the diminutive Irishman is a true believer.

“History tells us that the greatest men were always small,” Shakira says, leaping to the defense of her compact idol. “Napoleon, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan.” She breaks off to address her mountain man of a minder. “Miquel,” she says sadly, “you will never fit in the history books.”

As our van does battle with rush-hour traffic, the conversation takes another unusual turn. Shakira notes that she’s currently listening to a lot of music made in 1977, the year she was born. The Clash are on heavy rotation in her car, as is the Cure’s new best-of and a three-CD Police collection. “I don’t know what it is about music from that period that speaks to me so much,” she says, puzzled. “There is an honesty to it that I really like, and the riffs” — she pronounces the word reefs — “hit you in the stomach and make you feel very funny and sensual. Not sexual, but very sensual.”

We drift into reverie, the better to contemplate the sensuality of “White Riot.”

“Hey,” she asks, “what happened to the guys in the Clash?”

A brief history of their post-Clash careers ensues. Shakira makes a mental note to buy some Big Audio Dynamite albums and delights in the fact that bassist Paul Simonon now makes his living as an abstract painter. “London calling,” she sings joyously, “and I was there too. . . . ”

On paper, Shakira is quite a proposition. She is, by her own admission, a pure Colombian: open, combative, raw and red in tooth and claw. In the flesh, the singer often called the “Latin Alanis” comes in a neatly built, tightly wrapped package. Her eyes burn with an intensity unusual in a 25-year-old, and her English still bears the charming hallmarks of a recently adopted language.

Don’t let the heavy accent throw you, though: Shakira is now a bona fide pop star in the U.S. The speed with which she was whisked through the airport gives some indication of her current status in America: Shoulders hunched and head down, she exited the terminal in a fashion that would make Elizabeth Taylor proud. This is neither false modesty nor protection paranoia. With the release of her English-language debut, Laundry Service, her sixth album overall, Shakira has offically entered the ring with Britney, Christina, J.Lo and Pink, a stadium-ready artiste in an overcrowded diva market, fully prepared to do battle. And Shakira is putting up quite a fight.

Released in November, Laundry Service debuted at number 3 in the U.S. and has remained in the upper reaches of the Billboard album chart ever since, selling about 1.5 million copies. It may not be anything new in the music business, but it’s still astonishing how far some smoldering good looks and a powerful set of pipes will get you. Add a huge hit single — “Whenever, Wherever” — and a video in which the underclad chanteuse writhes provocatively in mud, and you have a melt-in-your-mouth recipe for success.

Polly Anthony, the president of Epic Records who first saw Shakira eight years ago in a New York club, views her as nothing less than a female Prince. “She can sing, dance, write and produce,” says Anthony. “She’s a complete package. For Shakira, the possibilities are limitless.”

And not since Madonna, perhaps, has a female pop star publicly dared to bare both her booty and her brain. Shakira has the body of a lap dancer and the mind of a scholar. She’s never happier than when curled up with the poetry of Walt Whitman or the lyrics of Leonard Cohen. She readily confesses to having an interest in Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical studies and vintage Led Zeppelin. She also gets drunk on one tequila, has a thing for low-slung, lace-up leather trousers and can whip up a mean Middle Eastern feast.

That all sounds a touch too perfect, but would-be suitors can back off: Shakira is spoken for. And by none other Antonio de la Rúa, the lawyer son of the freshly deposed president of Argentina.

But the previous night, as the de la Rúa family prepared to take an unscheduled vacation in an undisclosed location, Shakira was onstage at Miami Arena, performing as part of local radio powerhouse Y100’s charity Christmas concert, confidently unveiling live versions of songs from Laundry Service.

This careening collection of global pop is the first major crossover album sung in English by a Spanish-speaking artist. Yes, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias have sung en Español, but they were all raised, if not exclusively in America, certainly in the American way. But Shakira’s first language is Spanish — two years ago she couldn’t complete a full sentence in English — and music historians will need to go back to the heady time when Julio Iglesias, Enrique’s papa, crooned “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” to find a Spanish natural who has strayed so ambitiously beyond the mother tongue.

“It’s always been a big question mark,” Shakira muses. “For a long time, I thought I wouldn’t be able to think in English well enough to write songs. Then something clicked in my head, and everything changed. I could express myself in English. I prayed to God and said, ‘If you want me to make this album in English, send me a song today. Not tomorrow. Today.’ Then I sat and waited, and he sent me ‘Objection.’ The whole song, in English, the music, everything. Then I knew I could do it.”

As she works the Miami stage, amid radio-friendly power balladry and thought-provoking belly dancing, the predominantly Latin audience is largely won over. A few dissenting voices, however, would prefer that Shakira stuck to Spanish. “She sounds uncomfortable singing in English,” says Ramona Jamera, from Miami’s South Beach, after Shakira’s show. An Internet detractor named Hermons puts it more forcefully. “Shakira is a total sellout,” he argues. “FOR SALE,” he continues, “ONE COLOMBIAN ASS.”

“I’m not pretending to be an American girl,” Shakira says calmly, keen to downplay the language issue. “I haven’t abandoned the Latin community. How could I suddenly walk away from a whole continent? It’s crazy. I’m Colombian, and nothing will change that.”

She is equally dismissive of the “hair controversy” that arose when, just prior to the album’s release, she switched from black to blond. Certain quarters interpreted this as a betrayal, quite literally, of her roots. They accused Shakira of deploying a cynical marketing device to attract the fairer-skinned record buyer.

“It’s only hair,” sniffs Shakira, tugging at her corn-yellow tresses. “I wanted to be a redhead, but the sun made it streak. Dyeing your hair is something Colombian women do all the time. It’s part of the culture.”

Shakira comes from Barranquilla, a port city in Colombia’s north. When she was a child, the jewelry store her father owned went bankrupt. William Mebarak, a Lebanese New Yorker, wanted to be a doctor but got sick and gave up. “He’s a terrible businessman,” his daughter laughs. “He’s a bohemian writer now, but really he’s a frustrated doctor. He’s always carrying pills with him — he wants to create illnesses and then cure them.”

When Shakira’s mother, Nidia, first met William, she thought he looked like Omar Sharif, the Brad Pitt of his day. Which was quite a coincidence, since the night before, Nidia had prayed to meet a man who looked like Omar Sharif. It was Nidia’s legs that did it for William. Her miniskirt must have helped. They fell in love.

Thirty years later, the couple is still together, only now they dress in the slightly less risqué attire favored by middle-aged denizens of Miami Beach. At Shakira’s arena performance, her parents sit to the side of the stage, both unblinkingly attentive and visibly nervous. William taps his fingers in a rhythm only he can hear, while Nidia anxiously glances around the arena as if covertly checking for assassins.

“I’m lucky I have family around me,” Shakira says. “Otherwise, I know I would be taking the risk of maybe falling in love with myself. But there are always people close to me who I trust, who will scold me and pull my ears if I need it. They are the columns that hold up the structure. Fame isolates people from reality. That happens to many artists, and I don’t want it to happen to me.”

If fame can be measured in Calvin Klein ads, Pepsi sponsorships or appearances on the cover of Time — all of which can be found on her résumé — then Shakira is really famous.

Her first big break came at age 13, when she lucked into an a capella audition with a Sony executive she passed in the lobby of a Bogotá hotel. A second showcase promptly followed, as did a recording contract. But the young Shakira struggled to convince the public as a singer, and briefly a television actress, of her worth. It wasn’t until 1996’s more adult-oriented album, Pies Descalzos (Bare Feet), with its infectious single “Estoy Aqui” (“I’m Here”), that the Latin market began to pay attention.

But it was Dónde Están Los Ladrones? (Where Are the Thieves?), produced by Emilio Estefan, the founder of the Miami Sound Machine, that stole Latin America’s heart. Robustly emotional and musically promiscuous, it sold by the hacienda-load. Within a year of its release, Shakira was playing Mexican stadiums.

Even Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez fell under Shakira’s spell. In the June 1999 edition of his magazine Hombre de Cambio, the renowned writer worked himself into a lather over four pages, waxing poetic about her “perfect girl’s countenance and deceiving fragility.”

With one continent conquered, Shakira set about seducing the other populated five. And foolish as it may sound, as the new millennium arrived, world domination didn’t seem completely out of the question. “It was my destiny, obviously,” she says with a shrug.

Herbal tea is discreetly delivered to a corner of the Mercer Hotel in New York’s Soho, and Shakira draws herself to her full 4-feet-11 to pour the fragrant brew. As she does, she reveals a small AC/DC patch on the back of her denim jacket. The smooth line of her tight gold pants is undisturbed by any discernible underwear.

It seems like a pertinent moment to discuss how her English lyrics offer a highly individualistic slant on the human form. Take this, from “Objection (Tango)”: “Next to her cheap silicone I’m minimal/That’s why in front of your eyes I’m invisible.” Or from “Whenever, Wherever”: “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble/So you don’t confuse them with mountains.”

For a second we find ourselves studying her chest, checking for mountain/breast confusion. “What can I say?” she says. “I have small breasts. But as I say in that song, ‘Small things also count.’ ”

Which leads us, inevitably, back to Bono. I disclose that I’ve come to know the singer socially over the years. “I met him for only a couple of minutes,” she sighs, plainly smitten. “But he had a very strong presence. I would love to meet him properly. He is a good man. I admire people in the arts who participate in political issues and refuse to lead selfish lives.”

Her other rock love, Kurt Cobain, still makes her shiver with excitement. “I remember the first time I saw him,” she enthuses. “I saw the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ video and instantly fell in love with him, even though I couldn’t see his face. I just wanted to see his face so much. After weeks of finding out anything I could about Nirvana, I saw his face — and he had a face like an angel. I loved him. He was my platonic love.” She pauses, her teacup frozen in midair. “I hope Courtney doesn’t hear this,” she grimaces.

With her long bleached hair cascading over a dramatically abbreviated T-shirt, Shakira fits the Mercer’s rock- and movie-star ambience perfectly, particularly because she is wearing large dark glasses. She apologizes, saying she must keep them on because the frames conceal minuscule cameras that film the world from her perspective for a new VH1 program, this episode of which is called Being . . . Shakira.

Yesterday these bionic spectacles recorded an encounter with a breathless Miami DJ who, in a frenzy of Colombian camaraderie, insisted that she had met all of Shakira’s family. “Your grandmother is adorable,” the DJ gushed. “My grandmother is in heaven,” replied Shakira somberly.

Now, as a promotional schedule tighter than her pants demands, Shakira must train her cam-shades on the man from Blender as he asks a series of apparently innocuous but revealing questions. Such as: Do you have any interesting scars?

“This one right here was a burn,” she says, offering a hand for inspection. “There’s a celebration in Colombia where kids light candles and fireworks, so I made my own firework out of a pan cleaner. I was swinging it from some string, but the wind blew it onto my hand and burned it pretty bad.”

When did you last break the law?

“I’m sure it was a driving thing,” she says, biting a glossy lip. “It was probably an impulse that I couldn’t control.”

Are you useful in a fight?

“I’m better in a debate,” she says. “What a weird thing to ask.”

Do you have a temper?

“Oh, I explode,” she says, looking sheepish. “Then I always regret it. It’s something I’m trying to overcome with willpower. I’m in a very high-pressure, hysterical job — everything has to be done in a hurry. So sometimes I just have to say stop.”

Can a person have too much sex?

“Yes, of course,” she says with a knowledgeable nod. “Like too much food or too much rest.” She cracks a broad grin. “Now I’m enjoying these questions,” she smirks. “So much better than ‘Why did you dye your hair?’ or ‘What do you think of Madonna?’ ”

Fine, we’ll continue. Would you date a very short guy?

“I did once. I used to like short men. I had a thing for them for a while, but now I have a tall boyfriend, so I’ve changed. I feel protected by tall men now.”

Give two good reasons to visit Colombia, and one not to.

“If you want to see people with broad smiles, who look you straight in the eye,” she says. “Second reason: If you want the best food you’ve ever tasted.”

Then she thinks in silence for a full minute before draining her cup. “But if you are scared by the idea of going to Colombia — don’t go.” She goes on to make the place sound like the setting for a violent narcoterrorism movie. Is it? Well, not really.

Tomorrow, Shakira will fly to Los Angeles for another radio-station concert. Later she’ll head to Argentina to spend Christmas with her boyfriend’s embattled parents. As she stands to leave, a team of large men with shaved heads falls in around her. “I’m very interested to learn what serious critics think about my music,” she says in an unsubtle parting shot. “I’m not just saying that to flatter you. Your opinions are very important to me.”

Outside, the van’s engine is idling. “And the next time you see Bono,” she says, her black eyes shining with show-business sincerity, “tell him I’d love to meet him again.”

Shakira: Her life in CDs

Pies Descalzos
Sony Discos, 1996

Simplistic lyrics and elementary guitar riffs form the core of this likeable but uninspiring offering. (Two unsuccessful albums recorded before her sixteenth birthday are now out of print.) Shakira’s distinctive bellow is gestating nicely, though, and 4 million Latin record buyers can’t be wrong.
And say hola! to The magnificently named Alejandro “Pancho” Gomez on harmonica!

Dónde Están los Ladrones?
Sony Discos, 1998

A more confident and charismatic Shakira attempts to fuse traditional Latin music with the balls-munching bile of the new breed of Angsty Young Women. Somehow, she pulls it off.
And say hola! to The magnificently named Luis Fernando Ochoa on guitar and tambourine!

MTV Unplugged
Sony Discos, 2000

Featuring the Arabic-flavored “Ojos Asi,” which scooped a 2000 Latin Grammy Award, and “Octavo Dia,” which earned another, MTV Unplugged cements Shakira’s reputation as a musical force to be reckoned with and a sexual partner not to be messed with. Originally released in Latin markets only.
And say hola! to The magnificently named Ebenezer De Silva on percussion!

Laundry Service
Columbia, 2001

The big, blond, go-for-broke crossover album. Sung mostly in English, this is Shakira’s shameless attempt to grab America by the undercarriage. Should yield more singles than a good divorce lawyer in a busy year.
And say hola! to The magnificently named Abraham Laboriel Jr. on drums!
— Adrian Deevoy

10 Amazing Facts About Colombia
And only six of them are about drugs, kidnapping or murder

1 In Colombia, more than 300,000 acres are used to cultivate coca, the plant cocaine comes from. In Los Angeles, coincidentally, more than 300,000 celebrities have been awake for two weeks, stanching nosebleeds and screaming at their cats.
2 Vallenato, a popular style of Colombian music, features “musical duels” between rival accordionists who dis each other’s moms and get into drunken brawls.
3 One Colombian delicacy is the hormiga culona, or “big-bottomed ant.” You eat the succulent rear end and throw the rest away. Mmm . . . succulent rear end.
4 Colombia’s murder rate is 13 times that of the United States.
5 Shakira’s hometown, Barranquilla, was rocked by scandal in 1992 when authorities discovered guards at a local morgue killing people and selling their cadavers for $200 — to the local university!
6 In 2000, the U.S. enacted the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia assistance program. Eighty percent goes to combat drugs and guerrilla activity; the other 20 to buy corpses from the Barranquilla morgue to register as Florida voters in 2004.
7 In 1982, drug lord Pablo Escobar was elected to Colombia’s Congress.
8 Rebels in Colombia routinely stop traffic, check people’s finances on the spot in a database and kidnap selectively for mega-ransoms. They call this “miracle fishing.” We call it a pitch for a new Fox game show!
9 Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez is famous for his “magical realism,” as in this passage from One Hundred Years of Solitude: “To buy more thongs/And write more happy songs/It always takes a little help from someone.”
10 Oops, sorry — that’s Shakira, from Laundry Service’s “The One.”
— Brian Dawson