Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was born in 1977 and astonishingly speaks fluent English,Brazilian,Portuguese,Spanish and some Arabic, French and Italian. Her big break came in 2001 with the release of Laundry Service (15 million sales!). To date she's won two Grammy awards,7 Latin Grammy awards, People’s choice award and fifteen Billboard music awards. Not bad for a girl that wrote her first poem at four years old. Prior to Laundry service, Shakira had previously recorded an album at the age of 14 - Magia. It was a commercial flop which goes to show, if at first you don't succeed...

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Her latest album Oral Fixations was a stunning success. Her lead single from the album spent a record 25 weeks at number one in the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks. What really makes us tingle is her dancing. Her actual moves are based on Arabic Belly dancing. According to Shakira, she learnt this style of dance when she was a young teen to overcome her shyness. Surprisingly she lists The Police, AC/DC and Led Zepplin amongst her musical influences. 

She does a lot of charity work and doesn't publicize it much. In 2003 she became the youngest ever Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations UNICEF. A typical example of her generosity is donating 10,000 pairs of tennis shoes to impoverished children.  

As she has confessed herself she is a perfectionist spending hours in the studio creating songs. We say let the perfection continue.

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