Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born February 2, 1977), known simply as Shakira is a Colombian singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer, dancer, philanthropist and occasional actress who has been a major figure in the pop music scene of Latin America since the mid-1990s.
A two-time Grammy Award-winning and seven-time Latin Grammy Award-winning artist, Shakira is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, having sold more than 60 million albums worldwide according to the United World Chart.
Shakira is as of 2007 the fourth most successful artist so far from the 2000s. She is also the only artist to have two songs in the top ten of the most successful singles since 1999.
Shakira means "grateful" or "thankful" (شاكِرة) in Arabic. Her second name, Isabel, is also that of her paternal grandmother meaning beautiful. She spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located in northern Colombia.
Shakira wrote her first poem, entitled "La Rosa De Cristal" ("The Glass Rose") when she was only four years old. After receiving a typewriter as a gift, she began to write poems constantly. Her poems eventually evolved into songs. At the age of eight, after an older brother was killed in a motorcycle accident, Shakira became inspired write her first song .
When Shakira was four, her father took her to a local Middle Eastern restaurant, where Shakira first heard the doumbek, a traditional drum used in Arabic music and which typically accompanied belly dancing. Before she knew it, Shakira was dancing barefoot on the table, as restaurant patrons responded by clapping enthusiastically.
