The Real Reason Shakira Will Be Celebrating At the Super Bowl Halftime Show – It’s Not What You Think
Shakira looks ageless. She truly doesn’t look much different now than she did when US audiences met her in her 20s towards the end of the 1990s.
And, as the Super Bowl halftime show she’ll be headlining with Jennifer Lopez approaches, it’s become more and more clear to her that her age matters. A lot.
Find out why Super Bowl Sunday is a day of big celebration for the artist, in more ways than one.
It’s Shakira’s birthday on Super Bowl Sunday
Super Bowl Sunday this year coincides with the Colombian superstar’s birthday on Feb. 2, and she is more than excited that both events are occurring on the same day.
“It’s gonna be on my birthday!” she told Zane Lowe on his Apple Music radio show. “I’ve always wanted to perform at the Super Bowl. I think it’s the holy grail of the entertainment industry.”
“It’s a sports event but it has a huge relevance for us artists and I think it’s gonna be fantastic and I’m gonna be celebrating my birthday with 100 million people,” said the singer who will be turning 43. “Just a small party, it’s surreal, actually.”
‘A whole performance in five minutes!’
Shakira says that when Jay-Z, who’s producing the show, asked her to do the Super Bowl show, she agreed to it right away. It was something she had dreamed about for quite a while. Oh, and she has five minutes to perform her songs.
“Of course, I didn’t hesitate, I said, ‘Of course, count on me,’” Shakira said. She was doubly excited to discover that Lopez would also be headlining.
“It’s gonna be very short, therefore very nerve-wracking, I think,” she told People in October 2019. “The wheels are already turning and I can’t stop thinking of ideas.”
“Every day, I have a new idea so now it’s a matter of making them all work together and having the time to consolidate all of that and present the best show of my career. A whole performance in five minutes!” she added.
It’s a day for celebrating Latin heritage too
Shakira’s excitement about the halftime show is three-fold: it’s her birthday, as mentioned; it’s being headlined by two incredible female pop stars, and they’re Latin performers. She’s clearly stoked to have been asked to take part in what she considers a historical performance.
“To celebrate [the Latin] culture, to showcase it in a country where Latinos have also struggled a lot,” she told Billboard. “I feel really humbled and with a great responsibility in my hands to represent the Latino community.”
“… you can imagine the challenges I had to face when Spanish music or even Spanish-influenced music wasn’t that cool. Now it’s a different story, Latin artists are in a much more advantageous position now, but back in the day, it seemed like the Great Wall of China, crossing over seemed like crossing over the Great Wall. An impossible task.”
Read more: Shakira Tells ’60 Minutes’ Why She’ll Never Get Married
