Shakira Trivia
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46 free Shakira trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Shakira was thrown out of her school choir for a vibrato that sounded like a goat, won a bicycle in a TV talent contest at ten, and sold 1,200 copies of her first album. Then came Pies Descalzos, the Estefans' Miami studio, a blond crossover called Laundry Service and a run of hits that made her the best-selling female Latin artist in history, with four Grammys and fifteen Latin Grammys. This quiz covers all of it: the Lebanese roots behind the belly dancing, the Alejandro Sanz and Wyclef Jean collaborations, She Wolf and Sale el Sol, three World Cup songs, Gazelle in Zootopia, The Voice, the Super Bowl with Jennifer Lopez, the Bizarrap diss track that broke fourteen Guinness records, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, the Spanish tax case and the record-breaking 2025–26 tour. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone or print it for a music quiz night.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Colombian city was Shakira born?
Barranquilla
Barranquilla unveiled a 21-foot bronze statue of her in December 2023, frozen in her trademark hip swivel.
Q 02Shakira's father is of which ancestry, a heritage she credits for her belly dancing?
Lebanese
Lebanese roots came through her father; at four she heard a doumbek drum in a Middle Eastern restaurant and climbed onto a table to dance.
Q 03Why was the young Shakira rejected from her school choir?
Her vibrato was too strong
Her vibrato was too strong, the music teacher said, and she was told she sounded like a goat; at ten she entered a local TV talent contest anyway and came first.
Q 04What prize did a ten-year-old Shakira win in a local TV talent contest?
A bicycle
A bicycle was first prize; she then toured mining towns with a song-and-dance troupe, and by 13 Sony had signed her for three albums.
Q 05What was Shakira's first song, written at age eight, called?
Tus Gafas Oscuras
Tus Gafas Oscuras ('Your Dark Glasses') was about her father, who wore them constantly in mourning for a son killed in a motorcycle crash; La Rosa de Cristal was her first poem.
Q 06Shakira's father, who went bankrupt when she was eight, worked in what trade?
Jeweler
Jeweler William Mebarak's business failed, and she came home from a stay with relatives in Los Angeles to find the family's two cars and most of the furniture sold.
Q 07After her second album flopped, teenage Shakira stepped away from music for about a year to do what?
Act in a telenovela
Act in a telenovela: she spent about a year in the cast of Colombia's El Oasis before deciding her real dream was songwriting and heading back to the studio.
Q 08Which 1995 album was Shakira's breakthrough, later lending its name to her foundation?
Pies Descalzos
Pies Descalzos ('Bare Feet') was the first album she steered herself, insisting on a hand in every part of its production after her first two records had flopped.
Q 09Which TV concert series gave Shakira a live album that won the 2001 Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album?
MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged taped her in New York in August 1999; after that success she set about cracking the English-speaking market with her first English album.
Q 10How did novelist Gabriel García Márquez show his admiration for Shakira in 1999?
Wrote her magazine profile
Wrote her magazine profile: the Nobel laureate said no one of any age could sing or dance with the innocent sensuality she seemed to have invented.
Q 11Which music couple backed Shakira's 1998 album, the husband as its executive producer?
Gloria and Emilio Estefan
Gloria and Emilio Estefan hosted the sessions at their Miami studio. Emilio became her manager and predicted she would be the next big crossover star.
Q 12What was the Spanish-language title of 'Whenever, Wherever'?
Suerte
Suerte means 'luck', and it is the first word of the song's much-quoted line, the one about her small and humble breasts not being confused with mountains.
Q 13Critics heard a Beatles-influenced brass arrangement on which Laundry Service hit?
Underneath Your Clothes
Q 21Shakira's duet 'Beautiful Liar' was with which singer?
Beyoncé
Beyoncé had little time to learn the video's choreography, so Shakira, who created most of the routine, taught her how to belly dance.
Q 22In 2008 Shakira signed a ten-year, all-in deal with which touring giant?
Live Nation
Live Nation took her tours, sponsorship and merchandise at once, while she still owed Epic three more albums.
Q 23At Obama's 2009 'We Are One' inauguration concert, Shakira and Usher sang with which star?
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder led them through his own hit 'Higher Ground'. HBO, normally for subscribers only, opened its signal that day so any home with cable could watch free.
Underneath Your Clothes pairs brass that reviewers called Beatles-influenced with a melody they said was borrowed from the Bangles' 'Eternal Flame'.
Q 14Which soft-drink brand signed Shakira to a global endorsement deal as her English-language crossover began?
Pepsi
Pepsi signed her just as the crossover took off. Her new manager, Freddy DeMann, had spent 14 years steering Madonna's career.
Q 15Shakira sang at MTV's 2002 Icon tribute to which rock band, then covered its hit on tour?
Aerosmith
Aerosmith heard her sing 'Dude (Looks Like a Lady)' at the tribute. She then took it on tour, right before a pole-dancing take on AC/DC's 'Back in Black'.
Q 16Shakira named her first world tour after which animal?
Mongoose
Mongoose was her symbol because it can beat a venomous snake with one bite, and she wanted people to bite back at hatred the same way. The stage curtain showed one squaring up to a cobra.
Q 17Which Spanish balladeer features on 'La Tortura'?
Alejandro Sanz
Alejandro Sanz sings the straying boyfriend begging to come back, while she wavers between taking him back and dumping him for good.
Q 18Who is the featured artist on 'Hips Don't Lie'?
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean first cut the tune as 'Dance Like This'. Rebuilt with Shakira around a reggaeton beat and a salsa trumpet loop, it topped charts around the world in 2006.
Q 19'Hips Don't Lie' began as a song meant for the reunion of which hip-hop trio?
Fugees
Fugees were meant to have it: the trio tried the song for a comeback, Lauryn Hill walked away, and it was rebuilt for Shakira around a Jerry Rivera salsa trumpet sample.
Q 20Which guitarist features on 'Illegal', a quiet ballad from Oral Fixation, Vol. 2?
Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana threads his instantly recognisable licks through the hushed, country-tinged ballad. Reviewers split on it, and Rolling Stone called them somewhat disruptive.
Q 24Which South African band joined Shakira on the 2010 World Cup song 'Waka Waka'?
Freshlyground
Freshlyground were its South African voice, yet locals still objected to a Colombian fronting their World Cup anthem. Its chorus comes from a 1986 Cameroonian hit by Golden Sounds.
Q 25Which 2009 album, mostly electropop, had 'Loba' as its Spanish title track?
She Wolf
She Wolf translates 'Loba', Spanish for a female wolf. Its US release slipped from October to late November so a last-minute Timbaland track with Lil Wayne could go on it.
Q 26Shakira joined the panel of which TV talent show in 2013?
The Voice
The Voice brought her in with Usher for season four while Christina Aguilera and CeeLo Green sat out. Both originals returned the next season, and Shakira came back for season six.
Q 27Which singer duets with Shakira on 'Can't Remember to Forget You'?
Rihanna
Rihanna sings only on the English single: for Latin radio Shakira recorded a Spanish version, 'Nunca Me Acuerdo de Olvidarte', and sang it alone.
Q 28What is the name of the character Shakira voices in Zootopia?
Gazelle
Gazelle is the city's biggest pop star. Shakira voiced her again in Zootopia 2 in 2025 and brought a new song, 'Zoo', co-written with Ed Sheeran.
Q 29'La Bicicleta', a Latin Grammy Record of the Year, paired Shakira with which Colombian singer?
Carlos Vives
The vallenato hit won both Record and Song of the Year; Maluma later remixed it before 'Chantaje'.
Q 30Why did Shakira push back the start of her 2017 El Dorado World Tour?
A vocal cord hemorrhage
A vocal cord hemorrhage in her final rehearsals left her unable to sing. She refused the surgery doctors urged and opened the tour seven months late, in June 2018.