Shakira didn't just 'cross over' — she created a new multicultural pop stardom
As the lights flashed on and off during the 2023 Video Music Awards, Shakira started shapeshifting. Quite literally, she contorted and jerked her body in different directions — a reminder of just how corporal her artistry has always been — before howling her way into "She Wolf." But for the next ten minutes, which included her recent reggaeton collaboration with Karol G and a heartfelt nod at her first-ever VMAs performance in 2002 (a samba-turned-rock rendition of "Objection (Tango)"), Shakira gracefully demonstrated that she's been rewriting and redefining her sound for the better part of three decades. Her Video Vanguard Award, long overdue, is a testament to the U.S. finally recognizing what the rest of the world has long known: Shakira is one of our most transformative, A-list pop stars, with an eccentricism and unpredictability that has long made her singular.
Her stardom occupies a particular place in pop music, one that arguably no longer exists: the Spanish-to-Anglo crossover. She was by no means the first Latin, and had all, in one way or another, built "a foot in both worlds" career models for the rising Colombian rocker to replicate. But there is a case to be made that Shakira was the Latin artist to successfully maneuver an English-language transformation of her music and image, one which propelled her into her own lane of multicultural mainstream pop.
