For many Latinas who came of age after 1995, Shakira taught us exactly how to wield a guitar. She taught us how to assume a power stance. And, when I first saw her in the video for “Inevitable” on television in 1998 — headbanging so blissfully that her long tresses sprawled across the screen like a blue-black supernova — Shakira taught me that, even if I wasn’t a man, I, too, had the freedom to rock.
For the rest of the world, the Colombian-born superstar became the torchbearer for a globally-minded groove, which transcended nation and language in songs like “Whenever, Wherever” and “Hips Don’t Lie.” So once the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced last month that Shakira was nominated for its 2026 class of inductees, it only felt right that such an agent of change deserved recognition in the annals of popular music history.
Shakira will contend with 17 other acts, including Phil Collins, Melissa Etheridge, Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill and Wu-Tang Clan. Although she may seem like a wild card pick to some, she’s already a highly decorated musician; she’s won approximately 455 awards throughout the course of her career, including four Grammys, 15 Latin Grammys (including Person of the Year in 2009) and the MTV Video Vanguard Award in 2023.
“Wow, you counted?” she said to De Los over the phone. “I had no idea!”
Yet long before earning all these accolades, Shakira was a teen girl in Baranquilla, Colombia, waiting in line at her local record store for a copy of Nirvana’s 1991 grunge magnum opus, “Nevermind.” It was the first rock album she ever bought; that same year, she forged a deal with Sony Music Colombia and released a debut album of Latin pop songs titled “Magia.”
Despite being primed for pop princess-hood, Shakira was scrawling poems in her notebook and studying the works of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Depeche Mode and Tom Petty — whose music she still enjoys driving along to, she adds.
“In Latin America, there weren’t many women in rock,” she said of her ’90s experience. “When I first started, the music scene was so different from what it is today; there was a lot of prejudice. There weren’t many people doing pop or rock music in Colombia, it was mostly tropical music.”
Shakira broke barriers for women in the realm of rock en español with the heady guitar confessionals of her 1995 LP “Pies Descalzos,” and her 1998 follow-up, “Dónde Están los Ladrones?” which saw her crank up the volume and delve into the rich musical tradition of her Lebanese heritage with the Spanish-Arabic song “Ojos Así.”
She even learned English from Gloria Estefan in order to write her 2001 U.S. breakthrough album, “Laundry Service,” which then became the best-selling album by a female Latin artist — and opened a broader new avenue for her to become an international pop sensation. Shakira gently ushered Spanish into the American radio waves with 2005’s massive “Hips Don’t Lie,” then full throttle with Alejandro Sanz in their reggaeton hit “La Tortura.”
“It wasn’t easy for me to get songs in Spanish to play on American radio,” recalled Shakira. “I think that things have changed enormously and for the better for all of us in the Latin industry. Thirty years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago… artists like me struggled to be heard, to be respected.”
It was by the grace of her academic spirit that her oeuvre expanded into other languages, genres and instruments; in “She Wolf” she dabbled in dance-pop. She adopted the African Fang language for the FIFA World Cup theme, a jaunty champeta-meets-soca celebration titled “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).” During her live shows, including her sensational 2020 Super Bowl halftime show with J.Lo, she’s dominated the drums and Afro-Caribbean percussions.
If Shakira is inducted into the Rock Hall, she would be the first woman from Latin America to join its ranks. (Inductees Joan Baez and Linda Ronstadt, who are both Mexican American, were born in the U.S.)
“I’m so humbled to be part of such an amazing group of legendary and groundbreaking artists who have inspired my own career in so many ways… and already feeling that this has been an amazing highlight of my life,” she said.
A maximum of seven acts can be inducted into the Rock Hall each year, and they are only eligible for nomination 25 years after releasing their first commercial recording. They are selected by a voting process that includes over 1,200 music industry experts, including fellow musicians, critics and other professionals. Fans are also given the chance to vote for potential inductees daily online — and the top five to seven winners in the online Fan Vote will each form one ballot.
The 2026 inductees will be revealed in April, along with those receiving the Musical Influence Award, Musical Excellence Award and the Ahmet Ertegun Non Performer Award.
“I still feel like that girl playing guitar, writing rock songs in my bedroom in Barranquilla,” said Shakira.
“I still feel like I’m at the threshold of a new beginning. Even though I’ve infused various genres into my music, and I like to play with fusion, I will always write rock songs. It’s just part of who I am as an artist.”
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