Shakira Hits the Road with "Oral Fixation"

Shakira seems to be at the peak point of her career. After winning several prizes at the Billboard Latin Awards ceremony, after being known and appreciated all over the world, after improving her English to the level of becoming bilingual, she will go on tour with her last double-version album, "Oral Fixation".

The tour begins on August 9th, in El Paso, Texas, and goes on until September 25th. No good news for Europeans or South Americans, since she will only play in the U. S. and Canada this time. El Paso looks like a good beginning, though - just like the first part of her album is in Spanish, the first concert takes place in a major Latin populated city.



This week, after the Billboard huge success, she re-released the album. And by no means did it loose its first impact on the public! On the contrary, it crept back into the Top Ten and the singles "La Tortura" and "Hips Don't Lie" are as hot as they were at first release. Wycleaf Jean, the rapper featured on "Hips Don't Lie" will also join Shakira on her American tour.

Looking back to her previous albums, Shakira wonders nowadays how come she managed to write the lyrics for 2001 "Laundry Service" in English. At first, Gloria Estefan, the Cuban pop star, was the one to help Shakira write her English lyrics. But she proved to be a very good student and there she is now, confessing she feels she is pretty bilingual.

The bilingual album Shakira is now promoting is an interesting marketing strategy probably, but without giving it a 100% commercial appearance. Even though she decided to enlarge her audience (and, implicitly, her bank account) by releasing an English version of "Fijacion Oral", she doesn't give up her Latino attitude and Latino passion.