Shakira’s music has eluded me for the past decade. In fact, the last album of hers that I physically purchased was 2009’s She Wolf, and I did that only as a matter of loyalty. See, I’ve been a Shakira fan since 2001. Well, I’ve called myself a Shakira fan since then. Between 2001 and 2009, I watched her evolve as an artist and totally outgrow the musical style that I and so many other fans loved her for. I wasn’t ready for the change and by 2009, I was ready to give up on her completely.
Sure, there were a few songs from She Wolf that spoke to me enough for me to memorize and sing along to. But by and large, the album didn’t meet my outdated expectations of who I thought Shakira should’ve been at the time. I wanted the old Shakira—the one with Kool-Aid red hair who sang pop-rock songs about love gone wrong. That Shakira was 22-years-old, the same age I was when She Wolf was released.
Slowly but surely, I stopped caring about Shakira and about much else to do with music. Life got in the way. I grew up, finished college, entered the workforce. The free time I had as a kid to care enough about who Shakira was evolving into faded, and pretty soon it no longer mattered. The most I invested in Shakira during those years was watching her 2020 Super Bowl Halftime show with Jennifer Lopez, which filled me with as much pride as it did rage because of the backlash it received.
Cut to 2021. On a whim, I decided to watch Shakira In Concert: El Dorado World Tour on HBO Max. I had time to kill and this 120-minute concert film couldn’t be so bad, right? Right. I realized rather quickly that I knew none of the music Shakira played during this concert. Not even her most iconic songs were included. No “Ojos Asi” or “No Creo” or “Ciega, Sordomuda” anywhere in those 120 minutes. Nearly every pop-rock anthem had been replaced by something that sounded vaguely like Reggaeton…? Or maybe more like Urban Pop? Either way, Shakira had definitely changed. And I was well behind the curve.
Even still, there was a quality to her music that was distinctly Shakira-esque. I recognized it immediately. You can listen to her music, no matter the genre influencing it, and know when she’s written an entire song—from lyrics to arrangements—almost entirely by herself. Or at the very least, with people she’s worked with for a long time.
“Amarillo” is one of these songs, and it’s the one that most caught my attention as I watched the El Dorado concert. Even as Shakira performed it live, there was an ethereal quality about the music and the lyrics that called out to me. The general public doesn’t seem to know this, but Shakira writes some incredibly moving lyrics. In songs like “Amarillo,” she marries her knack for poetry with metaphor, often capturing the simple, the fleeting, and the seemingly intangible in just a few short lines.
Hearing “Amarillo” that first time and watching the fans in the audience connect with it shifted something in me. I have been in a Shakira audience before: there’s a love and kinship there unlike any I’ve felt at other artist’s concerts. And for a moment, I really missed being an active Shakira fan; I missed that sense of belonging Shakira’s music has often made me feel over the course of my life. If I’ve resolved to do anything in 2021, it’s to commit myself to listening to Shakira again and accepting her music as she has made it—with love.
In some ways, I feel like I’ve only just caught up to Shakira. It’s as though her music managed to outpace me as I buried my head in the sand and waited for the past to meet me where I was. Her music reminds me that I’m grateful to be in the present.
Listen to “Amarillo”:
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