Music

“Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” by Colombian star Shakira with Argentine DJ Bizarrap, was released Jan. 11 with little notice, save for two collaborative social media posts:  One announcing the track was coming out, and the other saying “Available now.”

Within 24 hours, the session had accumulated over 15 million streams on Spotify –topping the service’s Top 50 global playlist– and the video got over 55 million views on YouTube, a record for a Spanish-language song. That single day count also allowed it to debut at No.12 on the Billboard Global 200 and at No. 8 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. this week.

The knee-jerk explanation for the success could be: This is Shakira, global superstar, doing a post break-up diss track based on very public events.

 But that alone doesn’t begin to account for the extraordinary numbers “Vol. 53” pulled.

Salty post-break up tracks, after all, are the stuff big hits are made of, and historically, there’s been plenty. Witness last year’s “Mamii” by Karol G and Becky G, where Karol G  ostensibly talks about ex Anuel AA (“I see you on social media, can’t believe it, feel so sorry for you; I was such a good girl, and you piece of gonorrhea, this is how you pay me back”), but never names him.

Shakira, on the other hand, is anything but ambiguous in “Vol. 53,”, taking no prisoners and naming names.

While this may be par for the course in the rap world, in pop it’s practically unheard of, and in Spanish pop, it had never happened before. With her session, Shakira took the notion of the pop diss track into a whole new territory, where kiss and tell comes with names, details and punishment all bundled into one delicious package that can be –and has been—dissected, reproduced and parodied in thousands of ways on social media.

If you had never heard of Shakira’s very public break-up with longtime partner and soccer star Gerard Piqué, who left the 45-year-old star for a 22-year-old, you can hear all about it in “Vol. 53,” which not only drops Piqué’s name, but also that of his paramour, Clara Chía, and on top of that, goes into minute details.

“I’m worth two 22-year olds,” sings the 45-year-old Shakira, alluding to her age and that of 22-year-old Chía’s.  She also bluntly acknowledges her problems today –”You left me your mother as my neighbor, Media outlets at my door and in debt with the government” –effectively owning the personal drama that’s played out to endless speculation in the press and social media.

The salaciousness has literally and figuratively drawn gasps from fans, artists and media pundits worldwide, who are used to Shakira’s songs being extremely personal (after all, her 2017 “Me Enamoré” is all about falling in love with Piqué), but also polite and more reliant on figures of speech than actual narrative.

“Vol. 53” turns the notion of “above it all” on its head, and that alone has fueled endless debate on airing dirty laundry and on whether women in general, and Latin women in particular, are held to a double standard in terms of taking a public stance against those who’ve done them wrong.

They’re not, by the way; let’s stop feeling like victims. Women, and men, have long used their songs as cathartic vehicles to expunge their feelings following public breakups.

“You’re so vain; you probably think this song is about you,” sang Carly Simon back in 1972, and although the song was ostensibly about ex Warren Beatty, Simon didn’t admit as much until 40 years later.

Then there’s Paquita La Del Barrio with her legendary, “Two-footed rat” and her rallying cry: “Are you listening useless one?”  And what about Ivy Queen’s epic “La Vida Es Así,” where she not only confronts the woman her man is cheating on her with, but also lets her know he’s not a good lay.

But nothing matches Shakira’s very direct finger, which, tied to her very famous name and and her very famous soccer star ex, has proven combustible.

 Ironically, the last time a song in Spanish got this explicit in terms of naming names was last year, in another Bizarrap session.  “Vol. 49,” featuring Puerto Rican rapper Residente, is a diss track against the current state of Latin urban music, with pointed and personal references to Colombian star J Balvin that also caused a social media uproar.

For 24-year-old Bizarrap, whose sessions have now racked up billions of views in less than three years, the whole point is granting musical and lyrical liberty for what he initially conceived as freestyle sessions.

“Music is a space of liberty, and my sessions are no exception,” Bizarrap told Billboard during a Q&A at Latin Music Week in September. “Artists can say what they really feel and take charge of their feelings. They can express themselves in the way they need in the moment they need. I will never tell an artist he or she can’t say something.”

That, ultimately, may be the key to Shakira’s biggest single in over a decade: She is finally free.