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Shakira Breaks Down Her Most Iconic Music Videos (Hips Don't Lie, Puntería & More)

Allure's cover star Shakira breaks down her most iconic music videos, from "Hips Don't Lie" to "Puntería." Watch as Shakira gets into all the nitty gritty details of every music video shoot, explaining how it all came to life and why she chose certain outfits and makeup looks. Read the full cover story: https://www.allure.com/story/shakira-cover

Released on 04/03/2024

Transcript

Hi, I'm Shakira, and I'm gonna be breaking down

some of my favorite videos.

[light rhythmic music]

♪ Ooh baby when you talk like that ♪

♪ You make a woman go mad ♪

♪ So be wise and keep on ♪

This is Hips Don't Lie featuring Wyclef Jean.

The director was Sophie Muller.

It's part of my Oral Fixation album volume two.

The only way I have to know if a song is ready is

by the way my body reacts to it.

If my hips move, I know the song's right. [laughing]

If they're not moving,

since they don't lie, [laughing]

I know that I got a little more work to do.

Still, at this time and era,

I'm doing the very natural look,

barely putting any makeup on.

My hair is really just naturally curly

and just put some like curling definition cream on it

and that's it.

I'm just being very, very natural.

My idea was to sort of capture the spirit of Carnival

in my hometown, Barranquilla.

We brought some of the characters

that are very representative of that carnival.

The Marimonda and the Congo,

and even one of my closest friends is dancing with me there.

She's not a professional dancer, though.

She's just in it because it's part of my culture,

part of my upbringing,

and that's what I wanted to capture for this video.

This back sequence, this was the last shot of the video.

And it was really late,

but this was something I really wanted to do.

And it took a bit to put every sequin one by one on my back.

I didn't really have time to rehearse

for this video that much, so it's a lot of improv.

I think that red is a very strong color in me,

works really well.

It's not my favorite color,

but whenever you use red, people don't forget.

When I wanna be really effective,

like in the Super Bowl, I wear red. [laughing]

♪ Guardate la alegria pa ti ♪

[upbeat Latin music]

This was La Tortura, featuring Alejandro Sanz,

directed by Michael Haussman.

This is part of my album Fijacion Oral Volume 1.

It was shot here in Miami,

and Alejandro Sanz,

who is like my brother right now. [laughing]

This is when we first met,

and then we started a friendship

that has lasted until today.

I did my own makeup there.

That's when I decided to start wearing more

of a natural look and almost wearing no makeup.

Like this is very, very light.

Like you can see my freckles.

You can see my skin.

I'm crying there.

I'm crying really bad because I'm cutting onions,

chopping onions. [laughing]

I remember dancing on this rooftop in Miami

all covered in grease.

It was like some sort of grease with makeup,

some weird mixture.

And giving one of my most visceral performances,

improvising, and just feeling the music.

[Interviewer] How difficult was it

to get all that grease off?

Very difficult. [laughing]

I stayed for awhile in the shower.

♪ Whenever wherever ♪

♪ We're meant to be together. ♪

♪ I'll be there and you'll be near ♪

This is Whenever, Wherever,

directed by Francis Lawrence.

This is from my album Laundry Service.

It's all CGI.

I think it was Francesca,

who's like practically the only person that I've allowed

to touch my face [laughing] during all these years.

But I always do my eyelashes, always did my lips.

There are things that are unnegotiable

that I can never let anyone do,

like always, [laughing] it's always me.

I'm my own makeup artist.

I say that I'm a professional makeup artist

who's been working for this girl Shakira for like 30 years.

Still haven't gotten fired.

I think it was Robert Vetica who did my hair.

Worked with me for like

the entire Laundry Service period, amazing guy.

We shot this video in both English and Spanish,

so double the work.

And we kind of kept it wet, that wet look.

I think we did it with a lot of oil,

using a lot of oil.

'Cause if I wet my hair, it will just go poof like this.

[Shakira laughing]

I guess I just wanted to experiment

with different hair colors.

I started with the red,

and then red was too much to handle and to maintain.

So from there, I just didn't want to go back to black.

My hair was bleached under the red,

so I went for blonde.

And then I realized that I'm not too shabby with blonde,

so [laughing] I kept it for awhile.

I feel like this video really embraces

a lot of my different facets,

my signature moves.

It also tends to encompass the different elements,

like earth, wind, water, fire.

This is very earthy in general.

I remember I added the underwater sequence.

So one thing that I just threw myself off a cliff

to kinda give a nice ending to it.

♪ There's a she wolf in the closet ♪

♪ Open up and set it free ♪ This is She Wolf,

directed by Jake Nava

and from my album She Wolf.

The look, it's inspired by Barbarella.

She's one of my biggest beauty icons.

I love everything in that movie aesthetically speaking,

and I kind of wanted to do that big hair, that '60s hair.

I wanted to wear something nude

that caught the eye and made you think,

Oh my gosh, she's naked, but no, she's not. [laughing]

You know, so that's why I wore that black belt

to make sure that people would know

that I'm not really naked. [laughing]

I think I was in the best shape of my life back then.

I was just like ripped.

I was really serious with going to the gym every day,

being very good with my food. [laughing]

I wanted to come up with the weirdest looking moves.

I wanted to use my flexibility, 'cause I'm very limber,

and just kind of show off [laughing]

a little bit of that.

♪ Ciega, sordomuda ♪

♪ Torpe, traste y testaruda ♪

This was Ciega, Sordomuda.

Gustavo Garzon directed it.

And it's part of my album Donde Estan Los Ladrones?

Shakira from the '90s.

I remember this video being shot in Miami.

I think, back in the day,

I was into a lot of makeup. [laughing]

As time goes by, I kind of use a little less.

And I remember that was the first time I started

sort of playing and experimenting with the braids

and just wrapping pieces of wool around my hair.

I'm taken to jail, driving blindfolded.

I remember I created the idea,

kinda dreams that I dream about.

And then they become a reality.

That's kind of like one of the most fun parts of my career,

you know, to visualize something, dream about something,

and then make it happen.

♪ No fue culpa tuya ni tampoco mia ♪

This is Monotonia, directed by Jaume de Laiguana and me.

[laughing] It's from my album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran,

my newest album.

This was right after my separation,

and I just wanted to sort of depict my feelings.

And there was something very physical

about the way I felt, this hole in my chest.

I literally felt like people could really see through me.

That's why I came up with this idea

of being shot with a bazooka and just being very vulnerable

in this video, the way I felt at the time.

And the look is just very easy and, you know,

what you wear when you go to the supermarket

and your heart is broken.

Designed this plastic heart,

and we created this mechanism so the heart would beat

when it was out of my body.

It was pretty gross, but I think it was pretty cool.

♪ Tu tiene buena punteria ♪

♪ Sabe por donde darme pa que quede rendia ♪

Punteria is my latest video,

directly by Hannah Lux Davis.

It's from my newest album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran.

It includes Cardi B, who's been just amazing

and a pleasure to work with.

And also, Lucien Laviscount from Emily in Paris.

You know Alfie, so Alfie is in my video. [laughing]

He's the center in it, and I'm an Amazon,

a daughter of Artemisa, who hunts him down,

takes him as a love prisoner kind of [laughing]

in this planet of women ruled by Cardi B and me, of course.

For this video, I experimented a lot with pinks,

eyeshadows, we painted these two lines on my face

to give this sort of tough look of an Amazon.

My hair was pretty big.

For the Amazon look,

I'm wearing this pre-molded plastic outfit designed by Lucy

with my input.

And it was really something,

because they had me standing for two hours

just to get me in this costume

and sew me in.

And by the time I went to dance, [laughing]

I was a little Frankenstein-ish.

But I think it was totally worth it,

because the look is pretty original.

I wanted something feminine but intricate, different,

and that made me look tough.

You know, like empowered and yeah, just like an Amazon.

I hope you enjoyed me breaking down some

of my favorite videos and thank you, Allure.

Mwah. [lips smacking]

[light rhythmic music]