Agency report
A savage new song by Shakira in which the Colombian star, philanthropist and committed believer in the veracity of hips ridicules her former partner Gerard Piqué has logged more than 63m YouTube views in 24 hours, making it the most watched new Latin song in the platform’s history.
Shakira and Piqué, who played football for Barcelona, Manchester United and the Spanish national team, separated last year after more than a decade and have two children. The former centre-back, 35, has since begun a relationship with a 23-year-old woman, Clara Chía
In the diss track, a collaboration with the Argentinian producer and DJ Bizarrap, Shakira, 45, sings: “I’m worth two 22-year-olds,” adding: “You swapped a Ferrari for a [Renault] Twingo/You swapped a Rolex for a Casio.” The singer also notes: “a she-wolf like me isn’t for rookies” … “I was out of your league, which is why you’re with someone just like you”, and she suggests her gym-loving ex should spend a little time training his brain, too.
As well as punning references to Piqué and his new girlfriend, Shakira mentions her mother-in-law, the media and her ongoing problems with the Spanish revenue authorities, who claim she failed to pay €14.5m in taxes.
“You left me with my mother-in-law as a neighbour, with the press at my door and a debt to the taxman,” she sings.
According to Spanish prosecutors, Shakira and her family lived in Barcelona between 2012 and 2014, meaning she should have paid tax in Spain on her worldwide income for those years. They are seeking an eight-year prison sentence and a fine of more than €23m if she is convicted. The singer, however, has accused the country’s fiscal authorities of waging “a salacious press campaign” against her and insisted she owes them nothing.
By Friday morning, the song had racked up more than 63.5m views on YouTube, becoming the most watched new Latin music video in the platform’s history and making headlines around the world.
It also came to the attention of the Venezuelan singer Briella, who pointed out similarities between it and a song she released last June titled Solo Tú (Only You).
“Does that Shakira session sound like Solo Tú to you too?” she wrote on Twitter. “I can’t believe it.” Briella said she was a fan of both Shakira and Bizarrap but felt the song had been “inspired” by her earlier composition and that she would like to be given a credit.
She posted clips of the two songs side by side on Twitter and asked her followers: “What do you think?”