Shakira’s new music could be released as soon as the next couple of weeks. The Colombian singer appeared for the first on the cover of Vogue México y Latinoamérica and revealed that her fans could expect a song in the summer of 2021.

“After enjoying the stillness, now all the activity begins again,” Shakira told the publication, referring to the coronavirus pandemic. “I feel very energetic, eager to work, and very inspired. I’m on full throttle, doing a lot of songs. I’m in the process of mixing that song that’s coming out in July. I just finished filming the video, and these days I am dedicated to editing it, finishing mixing the song and preparing it to be released in July,” she explained.

©@shakira

Shakira’s music streaming skyrocketed before the lockdown when in 2020, she and Jennifer Lopez wowed the world during the presentation on the halftime show of the Super Bowl. According to the singer, the opportunity was crucial to represent the Latinx community. “From a sociopolitical point of view, it was a very important moment for Latinos, for Latinas, for women my age,” she said.

“It was an important statement, and we wanted — both Jennifer Lopez and me — to leave Hispanics in a place of respect and admiration at a global level, and I think that we more than achieved that,” she says.

©GettyImages

For Shakira, who has Colombian and Arab ancestry, her culture is her best tool for writing songs. “They are apparently distant, but they are deeply rooted in the Colombian Caribbean with the migration of Arab countries, especially Lebanon and Syria. It was a massive migration. At one point, those two cultures mixed in a way that they are already somehow inseparable,” says the singer.

©GettyImages

However, for the superstar, once she released “La Tortura,” her featuring song with Alejandro Sanz, she started exploring more Latinx sounds. “This song marked a stage because I began to get involved a little more with the Latin sounds and the new Latin American movement: what was happening in Puerto Rico, in the Dominican Republic on a musical level, and I wanted to take all of that on a global scale,” she revealed. “But always doing a little anthropological work of investigating what happens in each culture.”

According to the singer, social media also plays a role in taking music to another level. “Globalization and the explosion of social networks allowed to break down many barriers and prejudices that existed against Latin music,” she noted. “When those who had the power to play that music for the people, for the listeners, were only a few.”

The star also says that by being humble, she has been able to achieve more success. “People around me always try to remind me of what I mean or have represented on an artistic and musical level, but I forget what I have achieved, and I always want to go for more,” she says. “That dissatisfaction is not entirely negative; it has something good. I never want to go back to what I have already done, and I want to look elsewhere.”