July 21, 2005
Source: The Economist
Shakira and the dilemmas of going global
To sing in Spanish or in English? That was the tricky choice facing Shakira and her record company, Sony BMG, as they pondered how to follow the Colombian pop star's 2001 global chart-topping, 13m-selling album, “Laundry Service”. That album, Shakira's first (mostly) in English, was a dramatic entry into the lucrative English-language pop market for a singer who had sold some 12m of her four previous albums, all in Spanish. Having penned her first song at the age of eight and released her first album aged 13, earning an estimated $30m even before “Laundry Service”, Shakira found herself described as Latin America's biggest star and, by some wags, Colombia's greatest legal export.
“Laundry Service” put Shakira's commercial achievements on a par with—perhaps even ahead of—those of other leading pop stars who have lately crossed-over from Spanish to English, such as Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias and Gloria Estefan. But how to build on that triumph? “The industry would have liked me to put out another English album six months after 'Laundry Service',” says Shakira, now 28. “But I can't make music like hamburgers.” Sony had little choice but to wait for her to deliver in her own time—and in the language, or as it turned out, languages, of her choice. This year—several years late, from the industry's point of view—Shakira is releasing not one but two new albums. And, even more contrary to industry conventional wisdom, the first, just out, is in Spanish—“Fijación Oral volumen 1”—with an English-language album, “Oral Fixation volume 2”, held back until November.
This strategy, Shakira concedes, is a gamble, albeit one for which she is happy to accept responsibility. “I like risk and challenges... If it goes wrong, I'm to blame.” In an industry in which established artists are steadily grabbing power from the big corporations (whose main defence is to try to “manufacture” a stream of easy-to-manage identikit boy and girl bands, or turn many a non-entity into a “Pop Idol”) Shakira is said to exercise tighter than average control over all aspects of her career. In interviews she may attribute her decisions to “irrational impulses” and “feminine intuition”, but industry insiders say she has an impressive grasp of business logic. As her career approached a crucial stage in the mid-1990s, for example, she teamed up with Emilio Estefan (husband of Gloria), the Miami-based king- (and queen-) maker of Latin pop. She has always written her own material: when she decided to enter the English-language market, she learnt English well enough to write songs in it, and thereby ensured that she retained control over her music. She also changed her image ahead of the launch of “Laundry Service”, with a striking new blonde look—though, typically, she denies this had any business motive, saying instead that it was simply the result of her natural brown hair having become “like a jail... I didn't want to be buried with it.”
So what is the business logic behind this year's belated two-album release strategy? After all, there was a high price to pay for taking so long to launch a new album. The momentum created by “Laundry Service” has been largely lost, says one Sony executive, so when it came to market her new work the firm had “to assume it was starting from scratch again”. On the other hand, he concedes, “you can't rush an act like Shakira”—whose work has even been praised for its “innocent sensuality” in an essay by the novelist Gabriel García Márquez (a fellow Colombian).
Releasing the Spanish album first had two main goals. One was to re-establish her roots in the Latin marketplace. “When Hispanics heard I was writing in English, they probably thought I was leaving for ever,” she says. Certainly, back home her fellow Colombians grumble about Shakira having “abandoned” her middle-class origins for the Latin elite based around Miami and the Bahamas—she has homes in both—and “speaking Spanish with an Argentine accent” since she started to date Antonio de la Rua, the son of a former Argentine president. Two English albums in a row might have been too many, not just in Colombia.
Yet, Shakira points out, economic woes, social inequality and
bureaucratic governments (among other constraints) mean that many
Latinos have to go abroad to make it big. For a global pop star who is
often touring, the transport links out of Miami are far better than
those from Colombia. But, she says, “I have always been patriotic”,
visiting Colombia often and involving herself in its social problems.
She is extremely active in the foundation she started when she was 18,
Pies Descalzos (“Bare Feet”)—named after her third album—which helps
children affected by the violence and war on drugs that have displaced
some 2m Colombians. She has even harmonised her commercial endorsement
strategy with her social activism. Having initially followed the likes
of Madonna and Michael Jackson by becoming a face of Pepsi—which “gave
me exposure at a time I needed it”—she has since moved on to Reebok
which, she says, is interested in human rights and donated 50,000 pairs
of shoes via her foundation, because “we realised we could achieve a
lot together”.
Viva brand Latino
The Spanish-language market extends far beyond Latin America, of
course, and is booming both in America, where Hispanics already account
for 14% of the population, and Spain (Shakira performed in a concert
promoting Madrid's bid to host the 2012 Olympics)—so it is well worth
reconnecting with. But, more ambitiously, Shakira has also decided to
market her new Spanish album to non-Spanish-speaking fans.
Globalisation, she says, has “made frontiers between cultures very
blurry”, and “I wanted to integrate my two audiences”. So far, the
gamble is paying off. Sales of “Fijación Oral volumen 1” have already
topped 2m. It is in the top five in such non-traditional Latin markets
as Germany and Finland, and the top ten in France. Perhaps she should
re-record volume two in Spanish.
