In January 2023, Shakira’s career was faltering. Her last full album had to be found five years earlier, in 2017, El Dorado, rated 2.3 out of 5 on the Rate Your Music, site where fans vote. In this half decade, some songs had climbed to the top-selling charts, but never since the mid-nineties had her musical presence been so diminished. The Colombian had to do something. And she did: she released a song with Argentine producer Bizarrap, BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 53, popularly known as Pa’ tipos como tú. It won two Latin Grammy awards (Song of the Year and Best Pop Song) and achieved something unusual: music entered popular conversation, from bars to political discussions. Good music? Not so much that as the unhealthy curiosity to hear how the Colombian fired shots (with some grace, it must be acknowledged) at her popular ex-partner.
Today, the co-stars of that song are not living their best moments: Gerard Piqué sees his businesses start to falter while knowing that an album (Las mujeres ya no lloran) will haunt him for life; Bizarrap’s sessions have ceased to be musical events, and even the tax authorities (also mentioned in the song’s lyrics) had to return money to the singer. Shakira (Barranquilla, Colombia, 49 years old), however, has not stopped rising since then and is reaching her best commercial moment right now with the imminent 12 concerts (between September 18 and October 11) in Madrid, where promoters assure that 600,000 tickets will be sold.
When the artist’s concerts were announced at the Iberdrola Music venue (Villaverde, south of the capital), with the formula of adding dates as ticket demand grew, some in the music industry bet that the singer would not stop until surpassing 10 nights just for the pleasure of beating Bad Bunny’s record at the Metropolitano stadium. That’s how it was. “Her artistic hunger is infinite. Shakira is very persistent: goal she sets, goal she achieves,” says Luis Merino by phone, director for many years of Los 40 Principales (now Los40). Merino, now retired from the chain’s leadership, met the singer of Loba many times. He recounts an episode that helps shape the singer’s personality: “It was a dinner in Los Angeles where Gloria and Emilio Estefan were; Tommy Mottola, head of Sony International; her; her then partner, Antonio de la Rúa, and me. At one point, the debate arose about whether she should leave Spanish for her next album and sing in English. Mottola leaned towards mixing the two languages, others at the table bet on English… Then, she burst out: ‘Look, do you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to do whatever I want.’ Everyone fell silent.”
With three and a half decades of career, there are many Shakiras, all necessary to stay relevant over these years. From pop-rock singer-songwriter to Latin dance diva and now star of urban music that does not belong to her age group but which she has absorbed to not miss the trend of what is popular at each moment. But there was a time when the artist stepped away from the front line, precisely coinciding with her relationship with Piqué and the birth and upbringing of the couple’s two children. This absence now appears key in the frenzy to see the artist live in what Colombian concert promoter Catalina Amador calls “selling scarcity.” “Shakira generated hunger. She had gone many years without touring, preparing. When there is this scarcity and suddenly you present a tour by a long-standing artist who hadn’t been performing for many years, the demand is great and many tickets are sold. All this, obviously, with a new album on the market and an aggressive marketing strategy,” Amador says by phone, who will share her 18 years of experience as a promoter at Radar Madrid (October 19, 20, and 21 at Movistar Arena in the capital), a meeting of music industry professionals to boost business.
The numbers support Amador’s theory. Running since February 2025, the Las mujeres ya no lloran tour is currently the highest-grossing of all time for a Latin artist, with 400 million euros in ticket sales when it set the record in January. In Madrid, at the end of the tour, that figure will double.
Despite the success of ticket sales in the capital, some voices are critical of Shakira’s residency, the only performances she will do in Europe. Experienced Colombian cultural promoter and musicologist Gustavo Chucky García says, for this report, there are dysfunctions in the message: “I don’t know if this is a residency or a real estate project for a shopping center with music. It’s like when you go to these malls and enter a women’s shoe store and hear lounge, in a sportswear store they play festive music, and in the home goods stores they play Julio Iglesias songs. I think Shakira’s concerts in Madrid have more marketing than art.”
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The two-hour recital will mark the climax of the day, but there will be more: about ten tents where performances are scheduled (Amaia, Guitarricadelafuente, Juicy Bae, or Stereo Madness), literary talks (Rosa Montero, Lydia Cacho, or Lana Corujo), fashion shows, or gastronomic tasting. All revolving around Latin American culture and named Macondo Park, referring to the place where One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, Shakira’s fellow countryman, is set.
The debate about which is the fullest Shakira has fueled conversations among critics and fans for years. Merino: “I think the best is from ¿Dónde están los ladrones? (1998) and Servicio de lavandería (2001). Recently, she has been heavily influenced by new Latin audio systems. It’s not what I like most, but I recognize she adapts very well to demand and I think it’s great. In that sense, I don’t think she would admit a decline in herself. She will always keep rising. She will always be at the forefront of what is happening in the market.”
In a letter published last August in this newspaper, the artist expressed her desire to expand the concept of Latinidad during her stay in Madrid and justified the choice of the city: “Something happens here that the world deserves to see: Latin immigration is celebrated. Spain has embraced it.” Chuky García, however, warns: “I see it as a circus, and like any circus, it arrives, sets up the tents, sells its tickets, people fill the shows, applaud the clowns and elephants, then they pack up, leave, and nothing remains. And there is the use of the word Macondo… Yes, it is a country brand, Colombia, but in this case, it seems more like a postcard action for tourists than something deep, something that makes you think about the roots of things.”
Catalina Amador speaks from her experience, having attended a concert of the tour in Bogotá: “It was spectacular. For those of us in our forties who grew up with her songs, it is a very special moment to recover those compositions. Also, I think it’s a recital for all audiences, including children. And reaching a multi-segment audience is a great achievement.” There will be up to 12 days to verify it.
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