"No one is exempt from falls, but every time we fall, we get up a little stronger, wiser, and more resilient." With these words, Shakira introduced herself at her concert on August 30, 2025, at the GNP Stadium in Mexico City, bringing the 65,000 attendees to ecstasy. Immediately, in everyone's mind, the fall referred to by the Colombian transformed into the breakup with Gerard Piqué that shapes her tour Women Don't Cry Anymore. But beneath the surface, there was something deeper: herself.
The first two albums of a teenage Shakira, now out of print, were a failure that forced her to start over. She fell hard with that catchy pop and ballads, but she rose to build the most sustained and successful career of any Latin artist. Three decades, with their respective generations, dominated by someone who started with rock and ended up embracing Latin genres, becoming a feminist icon.
"She has always shown a unique ability to understand what is happening in the creation and transformation of music markets at any given time. This allows her to position herself in front of different generations and address the tastes and concerns of audiences at each moment," explains Nadia Celis, professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Bowdoin College in Maine and born on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Like Shakira.
That origin is one of the key points to explain her adaptation to each context. Barranquilla, her hometown, was the gateway for technological advances in Colombia in the 20th century. Since the 19th century, it had been absorbing migratory movements like that of the singer's family, with Lebanese, Italian, and Spanish ancestry. This mix of origins, consumption of American culture, and Caribbean influences, reinforced by the Carnival, shaped an artist who drew from Colombian roots with external references.
"That region marks you a lot, it's a very hot, tough region with complex political issues. They are as Colombian as they come, but there is a great acceptance of everything that comes from outside. Shakira is a great example: she can be many things at once, but she never loses her core, which is a strong identity, a certain intellectualism, and a certain conception as a woman," points out Jairo Moreno, associate professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
"She has a unique ability to understand what is happening in the creation and in the music markets."
She did this when she made her leap to the United States in the early 2000s. She integrated into the dominant pop scene but did not give up her songwriting. She alternated between Spanish and English lyrics from Laundry Service (2001) onwards. She also dyed her hair blonde, reinforced her sexuality, and has maintained this image. She did pop when necessary, brought back belly dancing when it was the trend, embraced the Latin wave, and when it seemed like she was falling again, Women Don't Cry Anymore (2023) propelled her to a generation that wasn't supposed to be hers.
"In her beginnings, when she sang in English and Spanish, she changed her voice according to the language. In Spanish, she added more vibrato, her voice's depth was greater and seemed more powerful, the frequencies in her recordings were lower... This shows that she is an artist who has always tried to adapt to attract a global audience without losing Spanish speakers," details Christina Ritcher-Ibañez, professor of Musicology at the University of Frankfurt, who studied this change in Eyes Like You (Ojos así).
The main element on which this Colombian's residency in Madrid is based is precisely on Latin identity. An entire theme park around the stadium has been dedicated to this. This is because the current Shakira wants to emphasize this element at a time when major stars are focusing on this identification. "She has always had a Latin vein, but it was never the main focus. To compare with another brilliant figure, she had never embraced identity as Bad Bunny has done. But at the same time, she has always been a Latin figure without whom the success of Karol G and Maluma could not be explained. Because she was the one who knew how to incorporate Colombian musical tradition into more contemporary languages," highlights Jairo Moreno.
Nadia Celis takes this artist's identification with her country and continent to two levels. On one hand, musically, with the introduction of Spanish in the United States. "La Tortura" was one of the first Spanish music videos to circulate on English television. In her globalization efforts, I think there is a kind of Trojan horse effect. She enters the world of Latinos, breaks into that world, and from there begins to reposition aspects of her identity that may have had to be disguised to expand those spaces and allow artists like Karol G to enter." And on the other hand, as a public figure in Colombia. "Here, the role of her foundation with all the schools she has created and her response now to the Pacific earthquake is important. It is an abandoned society, where the State barely reaches... but Shakira does. This creates more trust in her than in the State itself because it's no longer just about money. It's about creating a network of optimism around a person who is seen as beyond any political power. And to that, we must add her advocacy for women and migrants in this moment of criminalization."
"Many young people may have discovered Shakira through TikTok, Instagram, or memes and will share this show with mothers who are 50 years old."
To understand these transformations, Shakira's career could be divided into three stages: the first, building a Latin star who integrates into the American market from the early 2000s; the second, the global icon that everyone knows, especially after the Waka Waka from the 2010 World Cup, and the third, the digital Shakira, who rises after her divorce from Gerard Piqué and amid her tax issues in Spain to become a female icon, even a feminist, with the session she shares with Bizarrap. This is the version that remains relevant today and on which the tour that has generated the highest revenue ever for a Latin artist is based, closing with the 12 concerts in Madrid.
"It's very interesting that an artist with a three-decade career has become an icon for a generation that is far from her own. Many of the young people at the concerts may have discovered Shakira through TikTok, Instagram, or memes and will share that show with mothers who are now 50 years old and listened to the Shakira of Pies Descalzos and with 30-year-old women who discovered her with Loba. And they will all sing together and pay for their tickets," adds Natalia Simón, director of the Philosophy department at the University of Castilla-La Mancha and co-author, along with Juan Antonio García and Daniel C. Muntean, of an analysis on the social media impact of the BZRP Music Sessions #53/66 by the Colombian.
Perhaps that's what Shakira meant.