Colombian superstar Shakira performed a free concert on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach on Saturday evening, an event that the city’s mayor said attracted two million people to one of the world’s most famous waterfronts.The show followed similar performances by Madonna in 2024 and Lady Gaga last year, which were also attended by huge crowds who danced on the sprawling sand. For Shakira, it was part of her “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” world tour, the name of her 2024 album.
Shakira says: “Life is magic”
Shakira’s concert kicked off at around 11 p.m., more than an hour later than scheduled, to her fans’ screams of excitement and frenetic applause as drones circled overhead and wrote “I love you, Brazil” in Portuguese in the sky.The star spoke fondly of the first time she came to Brazil, nearly three decades ago.“I got here when I was 18, dreaming of singing for you,” Shakira told the audience shortly after taking the stage. “Now look at this. Life is magical.”The beloved pop star sang fan favorites like “Hips Don’t Lie,” “La Tortura” and “La Bicicleta.” She ended with the song “BZRP Music Sessions #53/66” which followed her breakup with Spanish footballer Gerard Pique.
She also took time to celebrate women’s resilience during the show. “We women, every time we fall we get up wiser,” she said.
One of the first places where Shakira achieved success
Rio Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere said on Channel X that two million people attended the parade. “Lupus made history in Rio,” he wrote, referring to Shakira’s 2009 hit song.When Shakira first performed in Brazil in the 1990s, she established an amazing connection with Brazilian audiences, according to Philippe Maya, an ethnomusicologist pursuing a doctorate in popular music and digital technologies at the University of Paris Nanterre.This success in Brazil “has a lot to do with the fact that she comes from Colombia, a country whose culture is similar to Brazil in many ways,” Maya said, adding that Saturday’s performance “culminates the relationship she has had with Brazil for a very long time.”On her way home after Saturday’s show, Dream Souza da Silva said that Shakira’s performance was similar to…
Bad bunny
The band’s concerts in São Paulo in February helped reinforce Brazil’s Latin identity.She said that these artists “make clear that Brazil, Puerto Rico, Colombia and other countries are part of Latin America. And that America is not the United States.”Crowds began accumulating on the beach Saturday morning to get a good viewing spot. Street vendors sold sweet corn and other Brazilian snacks, bottled water and the famous Brazilian cocktail caipirinhas, but also toilet paper, deodorant and even sandbags for partygoers to stand on to get a better view of the stage across from the Copacabana Palace, a luxury historic hotel.Street vendor Simone Paula da Cunha arrived at the beach on Friday evening, hoping to sell all the bottles of beer and water she had bought before the show and earn about $100 in total.
An attempt to boost the city’s economy after the carnival
The free concerts are part of City Hall’s attempt to boost economic activity after the Carnival and New Year celebrations and before the month-long St. John’s Day celebrations in June.Shakira’s performance could bring in about R$777 million (about US$155 million), according to a study by City Hall and Riotur, the municipality’s tourism company, thanks to the influx of tourists and money spent on restaurants, hotels and shops.More tourists headed to Rio in May in the years the shows were held – 2024 and 2025 – than in 2023, according to city council data. In 2024, growth was 34.2% on May 1, just before the concerts, compared to the previous year. In 2025, the increase reached 90.5% compared to 2023.Before Shakira’s performance, Airbnb said in a statement on April 22 that it was witnessing an increase in the number of guests expected to travel from different parts of Brazil, Latin America, and even European capitals such as Paris and London.Anderson Andrade, a 30-year-old architect, said he traveled specifically for this exhibition from the city of Guyana in central Brazil on Saturday and planned to return the next day.“I tried to get a ticket to see her in Brazil last year, but I did not succeed,” said Andrade, who drew the first wolf tattoo in honor of Shakira. “Today the dream became a reality.”
