Shakira is about to release her first album in four years and first since her son, Milan was born in January 2013. The Masterpiece will be released in five weeks, and it's not finished. Shakira is in the studio, listening to the final mixes, taking notes and making last-minute tweaks.
Shakira has labored over albums since she was 18, when she put behind the bland pop she had been releasing since 13 to make her breakthrough record, 1996's "Pies Descalzos." Since then, she has achieved global stardom and recognition unprecedented for a Latin-born act. This next Album ‘Shakira' is of utmost importance, the first under a Live Nation deal signed in 2012 for a reported $30 million with Sony RCA and Sony Latin Iberia.
"It's been two-and-a-half years of making songs, trashing them, doing them again, doing eight versions of each song, having a baby, doing "The Voice," coming back to the studio, reconnecting with my songs,” Shakira says.
There are splits between her Latin roots and her mainstream stardom, her Spanish and her English (which she learned specifically to make her first U.S. album in 2001), her sex appeal and her activism (education is her issue. She has met with President Obama at the White House and spoken at Harvard and Oxford, not stops for dilettantes. In three days, she will fly to her native Colombia to inaugurate a sixth school funded through her Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation. Then, after nearly two months away, she will return to Barcelona, Spain, where she lives with Pique.
"Sometimes I yearn to stay at home with Gerard and Milan," she says. "For so long I decided to have what I have now, this family, that it's logical for me to feel divided. A part of me - well, all of me - wants to be with them all the time and be a housewife. But there's another part of me that still wants to make music and that's still pleased with success. I won't deny it. I know it sometimes sounds almost immoral to admit you like success, but I like it -- I like it."
Shakira is pursuing new fans, even as she strives to remain faithful to the Latin base that has stood by her through the years.
In November 2012, while pregnant, she began filming her first turn as a coach on NBC's "The Voice." She returns for the current season. The first two episodes, Feb. 24 and March 3, attracted an average of 15.7 million viewers and her album will launch a few weeks before Voice goes to live shows. She has recently collaborated with Rihanna (both are managed by Roc Nation) for the first single from Shakira, "Can't Remember to Forget You," which is No.8 on the World’s best Singles chart this week and has received 172 million worldwide views on YouTube.
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