Friday, January 24, 2003 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Benevolent Motive

Shakira plans to funnel some of her earnings toward Colombian charities

Shakira is a pop singer, but she's also a charity giver and a political animal: "It might be a little awkward for my Anglo fans to see that side of me, that is interested in politics or social interests, mainly because you guys have seen me in the past year shaking my butt all over the place."

Shakira was 9 years old when her Lebanese-American father and her Colombian mother went bankrupt, then closed their family jewelry stores in Colombia.

"My dad sent me on vacation to Los Angeles then. I spent, like, three months here. When I came back, he had sold everything. We had to sell both cars, and the big television became a black-and-white television. The big bed became a regular bed. It was, somehow, a big change in my child life."

But the strong images of childhood struggles that haunt and motivate the Latin-crossover pop star are not those of her own childhood, but those of a walk she took with her parents through pockets of deep poverty.

"They took me to a park where all the homeless children are, and they showed me that sad side of life. It was really a tragedy to know that these children on the street don't have parents to take care of them.

"The material things come and go, but they're not the most important thing. Basic needs are love and education, and all those kinds of values. So that's why, in a way, I'm obsessed with that subject."

Shakira -- born 25 years ago as Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll -- doesn't just talk about social problems. She's in the process of founding a program to help equip the education system in her home nation.

"There's three million kids that don't go to school in Colombia," she says.

She began charity work at age 19. She started a foundation, Pies Descalzos (Bare Feet), which also is the title of her 1996 album. The foundation, with help from donors such as Reebok, has so far donated 10,000 pairs of shoes to needy children in Colombia. Why shoes?

"There are very poor areas in my country, where kids live in conditions that are not hygienic," she says. "The basic need of a person is to have a pair of shoes to go to school or to practice some sport."

Shakira herself never has to worry about money again. Last year, with the help of MTV and the hit, "Whenever, Wherever," the booty-shaking sex symbol finally crossed over from Colombian superstar to English-language new artist. She's in her sixth year of doing Pepsi ads, and Pepsi is stepping up her English-language ads in the States.

The stability of world stardom is what Shakira has always desired.

"I kind of wanted to get to this point, to tell you the truth. To have some kind of financial tranquility," she says, "so that later on in my life I could do this kind of (benevolence)."

Shakira also works politics into her concerts. As an MTV reviewer put a recent concert:

Her show "caused a few laughs when the band put on rubber masks of various political leaders. The laughter continued as a grainy video started showing President Bush and Saddam Hussein puppets playing chess. Amusement slowly turned to shock as the video began interspersing violent war footage and gradually revealed the puppeteer was the Grim Reaper."

Shakira explains: "It might be a little awkward for my Anglo fans to see that side of me, that is interested in politics or social interests, mainly because you guys have seen me in the past year shaking my butt all over the place." She laughs about the butt business.

But Shakira says politics come naturally to her.

"Maybe because I grew up in a country that has been under the whip of violence for more than four decades. When you grow up in those conditions, you kind of start to develop an opinion. ... My songs are my tools to express myself."

Her latest album, though, her first in English, "Laundry Service," concerns love, and its moods are mostly happy, says Shakira, who's known to friends, family and seven elder siblings as Shaki or Shak.

"Albums in the past, I always complained about men. I was a bit more angry. And now, I guess I have a bit more content about faith, and life, and love, and I started writing that way."

Writing in English was an adventure, she says.

"To talk to your lawyer, or your manager, that's how good my English was at that time. It was good enough to talk to people I work with. I didn't know if it was good enough for me to write a whole album, and to continue to be honest to myself, and faithful to myself."

Shakira doesn't find much emotional difference in the ways she sings in Spanish and in English.

"I probably feel that my voice gets a bit thicker in Spanish. The timbre of my voice, the color of it, sounds thicker in Spanish. But I don't feel that much of a difference, really," she says.

"Maybe in the beginning, I was struggling a little. But now, to sing in English or Spanish doesn't make that much of a difference," she says. "Afterward, when I hear my voice recorded, I notice a bit of difference in the texture of my voice, but it's very subtle."

In concert, she sings while playing guitar, drums and harmonica, and while belly dancing and flirting with the audience. (She learned the alphabet at 17 months; began belly-dancing at age 4; wrote her first song at 7; a record company signed her before she started high school.) To be so active onstage for almost two hours, she focuses on each moment, one at a time, she says.

"It demands a lot of energy and stamina. For some reason, it's feeling pretty easy for me this time," she says.

She had more trouble performing onstage as an 18-year-old, during her first tour.

"I used to finish every night, so tired, so exhausted, my brother used to carry me and take me to a car, or take me up to my room. He was holding me in his arms, because I could barely walk after a performance."

Music critics have been kind in reviewing her shows. That MTV reviewer reveled in Shakira's multitalents, calling her the "Colombian Sheryl Crow, the Colombian Elvis Presley, the Colombian Tommy Lee, the Colombian John Popper, the Colombian Rage Against the Machine ..." Shakira says she's flattered for being recognized, but fan reviews and her own sense of herself are more important.

"Me and my fans understand each other pretty well. ... If I let the critics in this relationship, it would be a love triangle," she says and chuckles. "I try not to read too much about what they say, just to not get intoxicated with other people's points of view. I have to stick to myself, and stick to what I believe in."