Shakira's Sense and Sensuality

Shakira's story began in this port city of high-rise apartments, turn-of-the-century mansions and gritty warehouse districts along the Caribbean coast. The daughter of a frustrated writer of Lebanese descent and a Colombian mother, Shakira recalls wanting to become a writer at age 4, intrigued as she was by her father's constant tapping on his banged-up typewriter.

She wrote her first song at age 8, "Your Dark Glasses," about her father. Two years later, she was certain she wanted to be a singer for the rest of her life. It seems that one of the singular events in her life was the night her father, William Mebarak, took her to a local Middle Eastern restaurant; hearing the traditional Arab drum, Shakira began to dance, to the delight of other diners.

"The musical roots Shakira has come from my family," Mebarak, an amiable man dressed in a tropical guayabera, said proudly. "In my family there was music. There is still music."

Some of Colombia's best musicians -- indeed artists of all kinds -- hail from this coast. It's no surprise. Barranquilla and the region around it are rich with history and intrigue, as well as an almost supernatural form of Catholicism and the magical realism of Colombia's Nobel laureate, Gabriel García Márquez, who also comes from the coast.

"Shakira's unrelenting precociousness, her granite-like devotion and a native city prone to artistic invention could be the only grounds for such a rare destiny," García Márquez wrote in a glowing profile of Shakira that appeared in 1999.

With her guitar and her grown-up voice, Shakira was soon singing the sappy love ballads that are a staple in Latin music. By 13, she had begun recording in a Bogota studio, this after chasing down a record executive in a Barranquilla hotel.

Her first two albums were quickly forgotten, but then in 1996 came "Pies Descalzos" ("Bare Feet"), which sold 4 million copies.

She hit it big with "Dónde Están Los Ladrones?" ("Where Are the Thieves?") in 1998. The album was nominated for a Grammy, and the song "Ojos Asi" ("Eyes Like Yours"), won Shakira best female pop vocal performance.

Her first English-language album, "Laundry Service" in 2001, which features the hit "Whenever, Wherever," sold more than 13 million worldwide and established Shakira as a crossover star. (The two "Oral" CDs were both in the top five on Billboard's U.S. album chart.)

When asked about particular songs, a smile crosses her face and she eagerly recollects how the words came to her. A song called "Shadow of You," for example, came in a storm of creativity at 4 a.m.

"That's beautiful, when in music or in art in general, you have those miraculous moments," she explains. "There's no rational factor involved, and the miracle of art or music just happens and you're just a witness to it."

Shakira also delves into a multitude of issues that catch her interest -- it's a testament, say those who know her, to her intense curiosity. So on one tour of the East Coast, she hired a Columbia University professor to tutor her about American history. In another tour in Mexico, an Italian teacher tagged along because she's determined to dominate that language (she also speaks Portuguese).