When Shakira returns to the UAE in April for her fourth performance, it will mark almost two decades since her Dubai debut in 2007. Her rise from regional Latin star to global pop force has, in many ways, unfolded in parallel with the rise of the Emirates as a destination for major international music tours.
Taking the stage at the 25,000-capacity Dubai Autodrome on March 23, 2007, the Colombian singer told the audience: “I am excited about reconnecting with my Arab roots.”
Shakira's father, William Mebarak Chadid, was born in New York to Lebanese parents Alberto Mebarak Spath and Isabel Chadid Baizer, before his family migrated to Colombia.
Dubai was one of the stops in the 97-city Oral Fixation World Tour, which began in 2006 to promote her seventh studio album Oral Fixation Vol 2. The tour also featured many of her hits from Laundry Service, her first English album launched in 2001, which catapulted Shakira into global stardom. Hits included everything from Whenever, Wherever and Hips Don't Lie to La Tortura and Underneath Your Clothes.
Shakira returned to the UAE less than a year later, this time in Abu Dhabi, for Emirates Palace's New Year's Eve bash. She arrived on the morning of December 29, 2008, greeting a group of fans at Abu Dhabi International with a shy “marhaba”.
“I have to work on my Arabic,” she confessed. “I am very excited to be performing for New Year's Eve in Abu Dhabi. This region is very meaningful because my father is Lebanese, so I am as much Arab as I am Latina.”
She then rang in 2009 with a sold-out crowd of 10,000 revellers, performing all her top hits, with her English songs proving most popular.
It was to be another two years before she staged her return, again to Abu Dhabi, bringing her The Sun Comes Out World Tour to Yas Island. Launched to promote her eighth (She Wolf, 2009) and ninth (Sale el Sol, 2010) studio albums, Shakira performed at Etihad Park, then called du Arena, sharing the stage with Egyptian pop star Amr Diab, who performed earlier in the evening.
“She was late coming on stage, but once she started performing, I forgot all about that,” Popon Malone, 36, a homemaker from Jakarta, Indonesia, told The National after the show, adding that the concert was “brilliant” and the singer's voice “really good”.
On April 4, Shakira will once again return to Etihad Park on Yas Island for the second Offlimits music festival. The Abu Dhabi stop is part of her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran world tour – her seventh concert tour – to promote her 12th album of the same name.
Released in 2024, the album's title translates to “Women no longer cry”, and was inspired by her experiences surrounding her break-up with footballer Gerard Pique, with whom she was together for 12 years.
The album has spawned several hits, including the record-breaking Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol 53/66, Punteria featuring Cardi B and the chart-topping TQG with Karol G.
