“No one plans to face so many difficulties and the complex experiences that I have had to go through… It is the first time that I have to deal with so many things as a single mother. I did what I thought was necessary for me. I had to pick up the pieces and go back to unite them and the music was the glue,” says the great singer Shakira vehemently. The Barranquilla artist has experienced her success before the world from a very young age. These achievements gave way, in recent years, to some of the most challenging and difficult moments of her life. And she did what great artists do. She took her story and told it, through her most honest and important album to date: Women Don’t Cry Anymore. And she invited me to Miami to sit, face to face, with the icon, Shakira. I’m glad to see you. How do you feel? I feel good

BRIDES

Are you very busy these days? Yes, very busy. It’s been an intense week. I’ve been recording a video, taking photos, preparing another video, the release of my album. So I go to sleep every day around 9am. of the next day. Yesterday, I got home at 7 in the morning, my children were already waiting for me, so I had breakfast with them and stayed awake with them. Sometimes I don’t even go to sleep until it’s his bedtime. It’s been intense, I’m juggling everything and it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with so much as a single mom, so it’s a challenge. But they are great, my children are very supportive. Did you tell them you were going back to work? Were you honest with them? Yes. They understand how important it is for me to make music, how important it is to continue being productive and they are really wonderful, they understand and contribute to me.

I feel like this new album had a different purpose for you, you had to do it. Did Shakira have to come out? Yes, this album is very conceptual, but it wasn’t intentionally that way. It wasn’t planned like that. It just happened. But you know, if life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade. Life gives you lemons… You press four gems into existence and live the process… Well, yes, I try to make the most of those traumatic experiences and, you know, I try to sublimate a lot of desires and work through my own frustrations: my anger. my disappointment and transform them into something productive, into creativity, into resistance and strength. It’s a process, but music has played a very therapeutic role. When I compose music, it’s like going to the psychiatrist, only cheaper. It forces you to process a lot of intense emotions and feelings than you would otherwise. I could only shoot.

Listening to the album, I hear your different voice… Oh really? Yes. Vava. I feel that my voice is changing over the years and I tell it to my children. Sometimes I listen to some of my music with them, not on purpose, but it just happens. And I say, “I used to suck.” I don’t like it, I mean, I don’t even know why I have fans. I think I have evolved. I like myself much more now as an artist. Some of my fans probably like me more at other stages of my artistic life, but I think I’ve evolved and my voice has changed a lot. It has thickened, yes, and also stylistically, I think I have matured… I make other stylistic decisions, very different from those when I was younger. That happens to all of us… Most people feel that way, you know, we look at pictures from the past and wonder what I was thinking when I put that on. The same thing happens to me artistically: Why did I dance like that? Jor what those movements? My God! I like the way you’ve captured your vulnerability on this album. Did you need to free yourself? Yeah, because it’s not an intellectual process, you know, this has been a very visceral process. In the creation of this album and each of these songs, my audience has also played an important role, because while I was going through these complex life situations, they were there supporting me emotionally. And I also saw myself reflected in their own experiences. There was an echo in these feelings that I was encountering. And, they were there, every step of the way.

This album is an album of love because not everyone is fortunate enough to find eternal love, but if you are lucky, you will know what it is to love and also to lose… Yes, and it’s probably the most valuable lesson I’ve ever learned. It is better to trust than never to have trusted. It is better to trust and be betrayed than to never trust. Because, as I try to teach my children, there are many more good people in this world and it is worth daring, it is worth loving. Love is the most incredible experience a human can experience and no one should take that possibility away from you. I think there are a lot of good people, no matter what shitty experiences you go through in life, there is always so much more to look forward to. Changes are painful, but when you overcome them you are left with the value of that experience Only robots do not experience pain. However, pain makes you more human. And the artistic experience of being able to take that pain and transform it into something else. That is an opportunity and a luxury that we artists have.