If the previews of Shakira’s Super Bowl performance hold forth, watch and listen for the Arab musical rhythms and her dance movements.
I’m a fusion between black and white, between pop and rock, between cultures – between my Lebanese father and my mother’s Spanish blood, the Colombian folklore and Arab dance…”
Shakira has noted the importance of her sense of “mixed ethnicity,” saying “I am a fusion. She asserts that her father’s Lebanese-Syrian Arab background has influenced her dance movements, especially those that have a strong sense of the oriental dance (commonly known as the belly dance). Check out the YouTube version of this song to hear for yourself. Shakira has suggested that a clear Arab, oriental influence is present in her breakthrough, world hit, Ojos Asi. The story goes that Shakira began to dance on the restaurant table. Specifically, she was enchanted by the rhythm of the drum used in traditional Arab music, the doumbek (or darbuka or tabla) and especially in the belly dance. There’s a story that when Shakira was only four, she accompanied her father to a Middle Eastern restaurant in Barranquilla, where she first heard Arab music. Photo of a typical Arab drum or tabla or derbecki. Not to further complicate naming customs, the feature of this post, Shakira, gets her name from the Arabic term ‘thankful,’ which in Arabic derives from the term shukran, to be thankful or, simply, thanks. That name, Mebarak, means ‘blessed’ in Arabic, derived from barak, or blessing. In Spanish, a newborn takes her mother’s family name, in this case, Ripoli, as her family name and she may take the father’s as her second-to-last name. Their only child, Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoli was born and raised in Barranquilla on February 2, 1977. Her father moved to Barranquilla, Colombia in South America, where he married a Colombian, Nidia del Carmen Ripoli Torrado. Shakira’s grandparents were Lebanese immigrants to the U.S. Contributing writer, John Mason, highlights the Arab slice of her life. Shakira has had a link to Israel, of which some are critical, but she has not performed there and her one visit was in her role of UNICEF representative in support of children. And, while she is a thoroughly Latin woman, she is relying more and more on the influence of her father’s Arab background in her music. While she has absorbed her Lebanese Arab roots over time, Shakira now seems to embody that connection. You may be surprised to hear distinctly Arab musical and dance rhythms in her performance. When you watch the Super Bowl this Sunday, February 2, be sure to look for the influence of Shakira’s Arab background on her music and dance. By: John Mason/Arab America Contributing Writer
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