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Shakira singing on stage in 2003, long blonde curls2003Shakira on stage at Bercy, Paris, December 20102010Shakira at the Latin Grammys in Seville, 20232023

ten waves · one river

Shakira

Her hometown cast her in bronze by the Magdalena river, hips moving, skirt turning into waves. Here the hips send the waves: sway, and a wave carries you to her next place.

Photographs: martinvarsavsky from Madrid, Spain, 25 April 2003, CC BY 2.0; oouinouin from Nanterre, France, 6 December 2010, CC BY 2.0; Junta de Andalucía, 16 November 2023, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Ten waves · 10 places · 12 moments

Sway, and the wave carries you.

The bronze on the Malecón moves her hips, and its skirt turns into aluminium waves. Sway the hem left and right: each full sway rolls a wave off it to the next place in her story. Or tap a band to go straight there. The order is ours; what each place says comes from the sources one click away.

0 of 10 waves sent

The hem is still. Sway left, then right, to send the first wave.

Shakira on stage in A Coruña in 2006
Shakira on the Oral Fixation Tour, A Coruña, Spain, 2006, the year of Hips Don’t Lie. Alejandro Bárcenas · CC BY 2.5

Arrow keys sway too, once the hem has focus. You can also drag across it.

Riomar · La Playa · Barranquilla · 1977–2023

Too much vibrato, then a school of her own.

A white school chapel behind palm trees
The chapel of the Colegio La Enseñanza, Barranquilla, November 2023. Jdvillalobos · CC BY-SA 4.0

2 February 1977 · Calle 89, Santa Mónica, Riomar, Barranquilla

The choir said no

In second grade she was turned down for the school choir: the music teacher said her vibrato was too strong, and classmates said she sounded like a goat.

Shakira was born on 2 February 1977 in Barranquilla. Her father, William Mebarak Chadid, is of Lebanese descent. At four, in a Middle Eastern restaurant her father took her to, she heard a doumbek drum for the first time, climbed onto a table and danced.

At about eight she wrote her first song, Gafas Oscuras (Dark Glasses), about her father, who wore dark glasses to hide his grief. At the Colegio La Enseñanza the nuns expected pupils to help teach reading and writing to children in the city’s poor districts.

Her first album, Magia, came out on Sony Music Colombia in June 1991; Pies Descalzos followed in October 1995.

A working school: see it from Calle 89. It is not open to visitors.

Sources
A wide beach and grey sea at Puerto Mocho
Puerto Mocho beach, on the coast north of La Playa, Barranquilla, November 2024 (a nearby view, not the school). Jair Varela · CC BY-SA 2.0

1997 and 2009 · Carrera 17C, Villa Mar, La Playa, Barranquilla

Barefoot, then a school

1,000+ pupils a year

She set up the Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation in 1997, after her first international hit, naming it after her 1995 album. The first Pies Descalzos school opened here in 2009, for more than 1,000 pupils a year.

A Shakira concert in 2006 raised money for a new school in La Playa; the land was bought in 2007. In 2010 it reached the “High” level in the national Saber 11 exams, and in 2016 it won the Premio Cohete.

A second Barranquilla school, Nuevo Bosque-Pies Descalzos, opened in 2023 for more than 900 pupils a year.

A working school and community centre: see it from Carrera 17C. The beach at Puerto Mocho is a short way north.

Sources
Shakira crouching with small children in 2011
Shakira with children at an early-childhood centre in Buenos Aires, 5 March 2011. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires from Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina · CC BY 2.0

Orlando East · Nasrec · June–July 2010

The eve, and the last night.

A modern steel stadium seen from outside in Soweto
Orlando Stadium, Soweto, September 2008, just before it reopened. 2010 World Cup - Shine 2010 from Johannesburg, South Africa · CC BY 2.0

10 June 2010 · Mooki Street, Orlando East, Soweto, Johannesburg

The eve of the World Cup

On 10 June 2010, the eve of the World Cup, she sang at the Kick-off Celebration Concert here with the South African band Freshlyground.

Freshlyground’s singer Zolani Mahola sang her verse of Waka Waka mostly in Xhosa. Hugh Masekela, the Soweto Gospel Choir and Alicia Keys were on the same bill.

The stadium opened on 2 May 1959 and has been home to Orlando Pirates since 1970; it was rebuilt and reopened in November 2008. In 1994 Nelson Mandela spoke here on the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising.

Home of Orlando Pirates: go in for a match or a concert, or see it from Mooki Street.

Sources
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Soweto, Johannesburg

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The closing ceremony on the pitch of a packed stadium
The closing ceremony of the 2010 World Cup at Soccer City, Johannesburg, 11 July 2010. 2010 World Cup - Shine 2010 · CC BY 2.0

11 July 2010 · Stadium Avenue, Nasrec, on the edge of Soweto, Johannesburg

Waka Waka at the Calabash

She sang it at the closing ceremony here on 11 July 2010, before the final between the Netherlands and Spain.

Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) came out on 7 May 2010 as the official song of the World Cup in South Africa. The chorus borrows from Zangaléwa, a 1986 song by the Cameroonian band Golden Sounds that she heard as a child in Colombia; the band called it a readaptation, agreed with her management and Sony.

The closing ceremony was Nelson Mandela’s last public appearance.

Nicknamed the Calabash for its likeness to an African pot, the stadium holds 94,736, the largest in Africa. The Waka Waka video had passed 4.5 billion YouTube views by June 2026.

A working stadium: go in for a match or a concert; the pot-shaped outside can be seen from Stadium Avenue.

Sources
Shakira singing at Glastonbury in June 2010
Shakira at Glastonbury Festival, 26 June 2010, two weeks after the World Cup kick-off concert. jaswooduk from UK · CC BY 2.0

Boulevard de Bercy · Miami Gardens · 2011–2020

Paris on film, Miami in two halves.

A pyramid-shaped arena with grass walls in Paris
The Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, with its grass-covered slopes, September 2007. Jan Zubíček · CC BY-SA 2.0

13–14 June 2011 · 8 boulevard de Bercy, 12th arrondissement, Paris

Live from Paris

Shakira: Live from Paris was filmed here on 13 and 14 June 2011, on the Sale el Sol tour.

The film has Whenever, Wherever, Inevitable and Hips Don’t Lie, and a tribute to the French singer Francis Cabrel. Sale el Sol, out in October 2010, won the Latin Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Album.

In 2012 the French government made her a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. The pyramid-shaped arena opened on 3 February 1984 with grass on its sloping walls; it seats up to 20,300 and has been the Accor Arena since 2020.

Now the Accor Arena: walk its grass slopes from the boulevard, or go to a show.

Sources
Shakira on stage at Bercy, Paris, December 2010
Shakira at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, 6 December 2010, on The Sun Comes Out tour. oouinouin from Nanterre, France · CC BY 2.0
The halftime stage lit up in the middle of the stadium floor
The Super Bowl LIV halftime show that Shakira and Jennifer Lopez shared, Hard Rock Stadium, 2 February 2020. elisfkc2 · CC BY-SA 2.0

First half of the halftime: Shakira, in red.

2 February 2020 · 347 Don Shula Drive, Miami Gardens, Florida

Mapalé, champeta and a zaghrouta

Shakira went first, in red: She Wolf, Empire, Ojos Así, a belly dance, Whenever, Wherever, two songs with Bad Bunny, then Hips Don’t Lie and Waka Waka.

Her set drew on Colombian and Middle Eastern traditions: mapalé in Hips Don’t Lie, champeta in Waka Waka, and a zaghrouta, the Arabic ululation, which became a meme.

On 2 February 2020 Shakira and Jennifer Lopez co-headlined the Super Bowl LIV halftime show here. She played the halftime of the Copa América final here on 14 July 2024, and two nights of her world tour on 6 and 7 June 2025. The stadium has hosted six Super Bowls.

Home of the Miami Dolphins: go in with a ticket for a game or a concert.

Sources

Barcelona · Sevilla Este · 2022–2023

63 million views in a single day.

Shakira filming a video on a Barcelona street in 2010
Shakira in Barcelona during the filming of the Loca video, 19 August 2010. Thestreamer · CC BY-SA 3.0

August 2022 · Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain (the studio of the 2022 session is not named or mapped)

A studio in Barcelona

Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53, with the producer Bizarrap, was recorded at a studio in Barcelona in August 2022 and released on 11 January 2023.

63,000,000 YouTube views in 24 hours

It drew 63 million YouTube views in its first 24 hours, a Guinness record for a Latin track, and reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first Spanish-language single by a woman to reach the Hot 100 top ten.

In its video she sings in a teal-lit studio while Bizarrap works behind her; pencil-sketch animation nods to the video for Take On Me. She met the footballer Gerard Piqué filming the Waka Waka video in 2010 and lived with him in Barcelona; their sons were born there in 2013 and 2015.

A city to walk freely. The studio where the session was recorded is not named in our sources, so no address is given.

Sources
A modern conference centre building in Seville
FIBES, the Seville conference and exhibition centre, July 2015. Benjamín Núñez González · CC BY-SA 4.0

16 November 2023 · Avenida Alcalde Luis Uruñuela, Sevilla Este, Seville, Spain

Song of the Year, in Seville

At the 24th Latin Grammy Awards here on 16 November 2023, the Bizarrap session won Song of the Year and Best Pop Song.

It was the first time the Latin Grammys were held outside the United States. She sang Acróstico at the ceremony.

She has won four Grammys and fifteen Latin Grammys.

Seville’s conference and exhibition centre: go in for a fair, a congress or a show.

Sources
Shakira at the Latin Grammys in Seville, 2023
Shakira at the Latin Grammy Awards in Seville, 16 November 2023, the night the Bizarrap session won Song of the Year. Junta de Andalucía · CC BY-SA 2.0

Gran Malecón · Avenida Circunvalar · 2006–2025

Bronze by the river, 4,000 pupils in the stands.

A tall bronze statue of Shakira with raised arms by the river
Yino Márquez’s bronze of Shakira on the Gran Malecón, Barranquilla, February 2024. Jdvillalobos · CC BY-SA 4.0

December 2023 · Avenida del Río, Gran Malecón, by the Magdalena river, Barranquilla

A skirt that turns into waves

She is shown moving her hips with her arms raised, holding a light between her hands; her skirt turns into waves, made in aluminium.

A bronze statue of Shakira by the Barranquilla artist Yino Márquez was unveiled on the Gran Malecón by the Magdalena river in December 2023. It stands over 21 feet tall; more than 30 people worked on it for several months.

She was not there; her parents were, and her mother called it a wonderful birthday present. The mayor, Jaime Pumarejo, said it showed girls they could follow their dreams, as singers, presidents or businesswomen.

On the public riverside walk of the Gran Malecón: free to visit.

Sources
Accor

Hotels in Barranquilla

Barranquilla · See the site

Accor’s Barranquilla hotels, including the ibis, which its page places a few minutes from the Gran Malecón and the statue. Rooms and rates are on the site; prices change by date.

See hotels
A full football stadium at night in Barranquilla
The Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez, Barranquilla, at the opening of the 2011 Under-20 World Cup. Mkstillo · CC BY-SA 4.0

20–21 February 2025 · Avenida Circunvalar, south Barranquilla

Home, two nights

97,873 people over two nights

The foundation brought 4,000 children and young people from its schools to the 20 February show.

Her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour played two nights here, 20 and 21 February 2025, to 97,873 people. The first night was moved a day earlier to avoid La Guacherna, a carnival parade.

A large metal sculpture of Shakira in a park
The 2006 sculpture of Shakira in the park near the Estadio Metropolitano, Barranquilla, photographed March 2008. Jdvillalobos · Public domain

Barranquilla’s first statue of her, a 5-metre, six-tonne sculpture, was put up in 2006 in a park near the stadium. The stadium opened on 11 May 1986 and has been the Colombia team’s home ground since 1987; it holds 46,788.

Colombia’s home ground: go in for a match or a concert. The earlier sculpture of her stands in a park nearby.

Sources
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Where it is now

The hem is complete: 10 places to go.

In Barranquilla the Malecón, Riomar, La Playa and the Metropolitano are a short drive apart along the river and the coast. Orlando Stadium and Soccer City are about 6 km apart on the Soweto side of Johannesburg. Barcelona and Seville are a train ride apart; Paris and Miami Gardens stand on their own.

Where it is now

10 places you can visit, from Barranquilla to Soweto. The two schools are working schools, seen from the street.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

  • Site reference · Restricted access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working school: see it from Calle 89. It is not open to visitors.

  • Site reference · Restricted access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working school and community centre: see it from Carrera 17C. The beach at Puerto Mocho is a short way north.

  • Building reference · Public access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. On the public riverside walk of the Gran Malecón: free to visit.

  • Building reference · Public access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Colombia’s home ground: go in for a match or a concert. The earlier sculpture of her stands in a park nearby.

  1. A white school chapel behind palm trees
    The chapel of the Colegio La Enseñanza, Barranquilla, November 2023. Jdvillalobos · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Calle 89, Santa Mónica, Riomar, Barranquilla

    Colegio La Enseñanza

    Shakira was born on 2 February 1977 in Barranquilla. Her father, William Mebarak Chadid, is of Lebanese descent.

    A working school: see it from Calle 89. It is not open to visitors.

    Sources
  2. A wide beach and grey sea at Puerto Mocho
    Puerto Mocho beach, on the coast north of La Playa, Barranquilla, November 2024 (a nearby view, not the school). Jair Varela · CC BY-SA 2.0

    Carrera 17C, Villa Mar, La Playa, Barranquilla

    Pies Descalzos school, La Playa

    She set up the Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation in 1997, after her first international hit, naming it after her 1995 album.

    A working school and community centre: see it from Carrera 17C. The beach at Puerto Mocho is a short way north.

    Sources
  3. A tall bronze statue of Shakira with raised arms by the river
    Yino Márquez’s bronze of Shakira on the Gran Malecón, Barranquilla, February 2024. Jdvillalobos · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Avenida del Río, Gran Malecón, by the Magdalena river, Barranquilla

    The Shakira statue, Gran Malecón

    A bronze statue of Shakira by the Barranquilla artist Yino Márquez was unveiled on the Gran Malecón by the Magdalena river in December 2023.

    On the public riverside walk of the Gran Malecón: free to visit.

    Sources
  4. A full football stadium at night in Barranquilla
    The Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez, Barranquilla, at the opening of the 2011 Under-20 World Cup. Mkstillo · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Avenida Circunvalar, south Barranquilla

    Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez

    Barranquilla’s first statue of her, a 5-metre, six-tonne sculpture, was put up in 2006 in a park near the stadium.

    Colombia’s home ground: go in for a match or a concert. The earlier sculpture of her stands in a park nearby.

    Sources

Stay

By the Malecón.

Accor’s Barranquilla hotels, a few minutes from the statue.

Accor

Hotels in Barranquilla

Barranquilla · See the site

Accor’s Barranquilla hotels, including the ibis, which its page places a few minutes from the Gran Malecón and the statue. Rooms and rates are on the site; prices change by date.

See hotels

Go there

Barranquilla and Soweto.

City tours of her hometown, and of Soweto by the two World Cup stadiums.

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Barranquilla

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Soweto, Johannesburg

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What’s on

Nothing confirmed yet.

No Shakira dates after today were listed when we checked.

No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.

Take it home

Three records.

The album that named her foundation, the English-language breakthrough, and the Bercy tour album.

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Pies Descalzos

Shakira · CD, Sony Music Colombia, 1995

The 1995 album that gave her foundation its name.

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Laundry Service

Shakira · CD, Epic, 2001

November 2001, produced by Shakira herself, with Whenever, Wherever.

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Sale el Sol

Shakira · CD, Epic, 2010

The 2010 album of the tour filmed at Bercy.

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Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.

The full record

Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.

10 of 10 places · 12 of 12 Moments

  • Colegio La Enseñanza

    Calle 89, Santa Mónica, Riomar, Barranquilla

    • Barranquilla

      Shakira is born in Barranquilla.

    • Too much vibrato

      Turned down for the school choir in second grade.

  • Pies Descalzos school, La Playa

    Carrera 17C, Villa Mar, La Playa, Barranquilla

    • Pies Descalzos

      She sets up the Pies Descalzos Foundation, named after her 1995 album.

    • A school in La Playa

      The first Pies Descalzos school opens in La Playa.

  • Orlando Stadium, Soweto

    Mooki Street, Orlando East, Soweto, Johannesburg

    • The eve of the World Cup

      She sings at the World Cup Kick-off Celebration Concert with Freshlyground.

  • Soccer City (FNB Stadium)

    Stadium Avenue, Nasrec, on the edge of Soweto, Johannesburg

    • Waka Waka

      She sings Waka Waka at the World Cup closing ceremony.

  • Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy

    8 boulevard de Bercy, 12th arrondissement, Paris

    • Live from Paris

      Two Bercy nights are filmed for Live from Paris.

  • Hard Rock Stadium

    347 Don Shula Drive, Miami Gardens, Florida

    • Halftime

      She and Jennifer Lopez co-headline the Super Bowl LIV halftime show.

  • Barcelona

    Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain (the studio of the 2022 session is not named or mapped)

    • Session 53

      The Bizarrap session is recorded in Barcelona.

  • FIBES, Seville

    Avenida Alcalde Luis Uruñuela, Sevilla Este, Seville, Spain

    • Song of the Year

      The session wins Song of the Year at the first Latin Grammys held outside the US.

  • The Shakira statue, Gran Malecón

    Avenida del Río, Gran Malecón, by the Magdalena river, Barranquilla

    • Bronze and waves

      Her hometown unveils a bronze of her on the Gran Malecón.

  • Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez

    Avenida Circunvalar, south Barranquilla

    • Home

      Two tour nights in Barranquilla, with 4,000 foundation pupils at the first.

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