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Shakira reveals losing voice was ‘darkest moment’ of her life

The Barcelona-based Colombian superstar Shakira says temporarily losing her voice two years ago was "the darkest moment" of her life, and which affected her "deeply".

Published: 5 November 2019 12:22 CET
Shakira reveals losing voice was 'darkest moment' of her life
Photos: AFP

In November 2017 the three-time Grammy winner was forced to postpone her hip-shaking “El Dorado World Tour” for seven months after suffering a hemorrhage on her right vocal cord.

“It affected me deeply, there is a before and after,” the 42-year-old said during an interview with AFP late on Monday in Barcelona, where she lives with Spanish footballer Gerard Pique and their two young sons.

“You take many things for granted when you have them… In the case of my voice, it is something that is so inherent in my nature, it is my identity,” she added in the interview at a Barcelona hotel.

“I always thought that one day I would lose many things, one day you lose your youth, you lose your beauty, you even lose friends, there are people who come and go… but I never thought my voice was something that could disappear.

'A miracle'

“When that doubt arose, when I did not know if I could sing again, it was the darkest moment of my life,” she added.

In what she describes as “a miracle”, Shakira recovered her voice naturally, without needing to undergo surgery as recommended by doctors and was finally able to carry out her tour in 2018.

A documentary about the tour, which encompassed over two decades of hits and was based on two shows she gave in Los Angeles, will open in around 60 countries from November 13th.

“It is one of the most important tours of my life for what it means, for the different obstacles that I had to overcome,” Shakira said.    

With her mix of Latin and Arabic rhythms and rock influence, Shakira is one of the biggest stars from Latin America, scoring major global hits with songs such as “Hips don't Lie” and “Whenever, Whenever”.

She was picked to perform alongside pop star Jennifer Lopez at the halftime show of the Super Bowl at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on February 2, 2020 -which happens to be Shakira's birthday.

“We have a lot of ideas, it is hard to do them all in the short amount of time which we have. But we will try to take advantage of it as much as possible, especially the opportunity to represent Latinos,” Shakira said.

The National Football League's Super Bowl championship final is the biggest annual event on US television. The halftime show typically features some of the world's best-known performers. Last year's show drew 98.2 million viewers.

By AFP's Daniel Bosque

READ ALSO: Why Shakira's Spanish accent is making Colombians cringe

 

 

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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