Shakira is receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards. on Sept. 12. The award, also known as MTV’s Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, is presented to an artist for their “outstanding contributions and profound impact on music video and popular culture.”
She joins Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Jackson and more in receiving this honor.
The 46-year-old Colombian singer’s career has spanned multiple decades since she began recording music when she was 13.
Shakira will be the latest artist to receive the Video Vanguard Award at the VMAs. This year she is nominated in four categories, including artist of the year.
The Barranquilla-born star rose to prominence in Latin America with her major label debut Latin pop-rock album “Pies Descalzos” in 1995. Her lead single, “Estoy Aquí,” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Pop Songs chart, and it became her first music video for which she won video of the year at the Billboard Latin Music Awards.
The album was certified platinum in the U.S., Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Mexico and Central America and double platinum in Argentina.
The global success of “Pies Descalzos” caught the attention of producer Emilio Estefan, Gloria Estefan’s husband, who believed in Shakira’s potential to break into the U.S. market. Estefan, along with other executive producers, helped release Shakira’s second major album, “Dónde Están los Ladrones?,” in 1998.
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The album incorporated the elements of Latin pop and rock en español, with Middle Eastern influences. The album included multiple hits — “Ciega, Sordomuda,” “Tú,” “Inevitable,” “No Creo,” “Ojos Así” and “Moscas en la Casa,” which topped Latin charts. She won a Latin Grammy for short form music video for “Ojos Así,” in which a red-haired Shakira belly dances.
The Spanish-language album sold more than 1 million copies in its first month, reaching platinum status in the U.S., and it is regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone.
The album propelled Shakira’s career into the U.S. market, as she was featured on “MTV Unplugged.” Shakira’s episode was the first to broadcast entirely in a non-English language and the first “Unplugged” LP to win a Grammy for Latin pop album.
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Shakira would release her first English album, “Laundry Service,” in 2001; it included her breakthrough hit “Whenever, Wherever.” Though it sold more than 13 million copies, the album was initially met with mixed criticism and ratings, with Rolling Stone calling her English songs “downright silly.” Still, her song “Objection (Tango)” reached No. 1 on MTV’s “Total Request Live,” and “Suerte,” the Spanish-version of “Whenever, Wherever,” won a Latin Grammy for short form music video.
In 2002, Shakira made her VMA debut, performing “Objection (Tango)” with her trademark belly dancing before crowd surfing into the audience.
After “Laundry Service,” she produced English songs like “Waka Waka” for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and her biggest charting-hit ever, “Hips Don’t Lie,” featuring Wyclef Jean. Her albums after “Laundry Service” were predominantly sung in Spanish and received more praise than her English LPs, such as “Oral Fixation, Vol. 2” and “She Wolf.”
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Her song “La Tortura,” featuring Alejandro Sanz, from “Fijación Oral, Vol. 1” was one of the first full Spanish-language music videos, after Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina,” to run on MTV without an English version in 2005.
Shakira performed “La Tortura” with Sanz at the 2005 VMAs, making history at the awards show as the first performance entirely in another language.
She performed “Hips Don’t Lie” the following year, with Wyclef Jean; it was nominated for MTV video of the year after charting No. 1 on the Hot 100. It received a VMA award for choreography in a video.
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Shakira is set to perform at the MTV VMA this year for the fourth time in her career.
In 2020, she co-headlined the Super Bowl halftime show alongside Jennifer Lopez. In 2023, she became the first female artist to debut in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 with a Spanish-language song, “BZRP Music Sessions Vol. 53.” She did it again with the song “TQG,” alongside artist Karol G.
Shakira has remained true to her first language, and the music industry has embraced her for it.
