Online Reporter
MIAMI. — Shakira’s concert at the Hard Rock Stadium is two-and-a-half hours of musical drama — a non-stop parade of bilingual hits, 13 costume changes and non-stop movement.
She performs a Lebanese-inspired belly dance during Ojos Asi; a tribal knife routine to introduce Whenever, Wherever; thrashes a Flying-V guitar during Objection (Tango); and has the audience howling and braying through an electrifying version of She Wolf.
The tour is titled Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Women No Longer Cry) after Shakira’s latest album, which was inspired by some of the most intense heartbreak and personal upheaval she’d ever experienced.
Her 11-year relationship with footballer Gerard Piqué fell apart, at the same time as her father had emergency brain surgery, and Spanish authorities accused her of €14.5m tax fraud (she settled the case out of court).
“Many of you know that the past years haven’t been the easiest for me,” she says on stage. “But who doesn’t have a fall here and there, right?
“What I’ve learned is that a fall isn’t the end, but the beginning of an even better journey.”
More specifically, the turbulence of her mid-40s prompted a creative outburst that put Shakira back in the cultural conversation after seven years of musical silence.
2023’s Bzrp Music Sessions Vol 53, a collaboration with Argentine producer Bizarrap, was full of barbs directed at Piqué and his new girlfriend (“you traded a Rolex for a Casio”) and won song of the year at the Latin Grammys.
She continued the theme on a string of hit singles like the sarcastic Te Felicito (I Congratulate You) and TQG (Te Quedó Grande – I’m Too Good for You), a duet with fellow Colombian star Karol G, which has racked up 1.3 billion streams on Spotify.
The audience spans generations — with mothers and daughters singing in unison to 90s hits like Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos and bouncing around to a celebratory Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).
That’s why the emotional high point of the show comes during Acróstico — the tender ballad Shakira wrote for her children, promising them she’d stay strong amid the split from Piqué.
As she performs, Sasha (12) and Milan (10) appear on the video screens, duetting with their mum.
“My heart melts every time I see them on that screen and I hear their little voices,” says the star.— BBC.
Mathew Masinge