📍Barranquilla, Atlántico, Colombia
1977 – 1991“Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll grew up in Barranquilla, the bright, music-filled port city on Colombia's Caribbean coast. Her father, William, was born in New York to a Lebanese family and became a jeweller and writer in Colombia; her mother, Nidia, was a Barranquilla native. Shakira adored her father and wrote him poems as a little girl, and at four, in a Middle Eastern restaurant, she heard a darbuka drum and jumped up to dance, discovering the belly-dancing of her heritage. When she was about eight her father's business failed and the family lost much of what they had. To show her that others had far less, he took her to a park where children were living on the streets — a sight she says she never forgot, and the reason she later founded the Pies Descalzos foundation, which now runs schools in her home city. At Colegio La Enseñanza her voice was too unusual for the school choir, but she sang anyway. Barranquilla now has a giant statue of her on its riverfront.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today