Shakira goes where wild things are with "She Wolf"

Colombian singer Shakira speaks during a news conference in Bogota October 11,2009. Shakira is promoting her new album "Loba." [Agencies]

Shakira cemented her crossover with "Hips Don't Lie," a belated addition to her English-language "Oral Fixation, Vol. 2" album that went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and in at least 10 other countries tracked by Nielsen Music Control. Shakira has sold 50 million albums worldwide, according to her label.

"What tends to happen with Latin stars is that they tend to have one big English-language record or two and then they revert back to making Spanish records," says Rob Stringer, chairman of Columbia/Epic Label Group. "She does a very good job of managing to synergize those two careers. Shakira is competing against iconic female artists and completely standing on her own, but she also has a career in Spanish as well, so she's completely unique in that respect."

In both the Latin and the mainstream worlds, Shakira is been known for clever lyrics and inventive musical fusions -- from tango to bossa nova to Andean flutes to reggaeton. As she did on "Ojos Asi," a Middle Eastern romp with electric guitars from her 1998 album "Donde Estan Los Ladrones?," Shakira looks east once again on "She Wolf."

In addition to the disco-influenced title track, there's "Good Stuff," a synthed-out snake-charmer punctuated by ululating and staccato beats; "Long Time," a percussive midtempo groove with a Roma-like clarinet bridge; and "Why Wait," a dance-floor scorcher by way of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir." (Shakira worked on the arrangement with Hossam Ramzy, who had worked on "Kashmir" with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.)

"It's an electronic album generally speaking, but it does have different organic instruments that, combined with the synthesizers, create a different sort of ambience," says the two-time Grammy and seven-time Latin Grammy Award winner. "You've got to put together a nice meal and make sure the spices don't take over the main ingredient. And at the end of the day, it gives a nice flavor in your mouth."

Even with vampires and werewolves being all the rage these days, Shakira says she hadn't heard of "Twilight" until she showed "She Wolf" to Epic president Amanda Ghost -- who in turn made her watch "Twilight." "I loved it, but I also found that it was, coincidentally, very appropriate," the "Harry Potter" fan says. "I think people are craving fantasy."

Shakira delivers that and then some in the "She Wolf" video, which also has a version in Spanish. In both videos, she writhes around in a cage, wearing a flesh-colored leotard and stilettos. Belly-dancing aside, this is a more unabashedly sexed-up presentation. (It also was YouTube users' third-most-favorite music video in August.)

Shakira says the "she wolf" represents her being "a little more in touch with my desires and a little more empowered or encouraged to satisfy those desires and set them free. It's something that just comes with time. I probably would not have written a song like this when I was 20, but I do it now because it's the way I feel today."

A renowned perfectionist, Shakira spent a month trying different mixes of the first single until she was happy with it. When she spoke to Billboard, she was still tweaking mixes on the album at the legendary Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. The studio, where Bob Marley, U2 and the Cure have recorded, drew Shakira to the Bahamas to record and eventually to live.

It was that obsession with production details that made her and Williams a good match. "We work in different ways -- he is very fast and very proactive," Shakira says. "When it comes to production, I think things through a little more and travel different roads before I make a decision or commit to something. I have commitment issues."

GOOD WORKS

One thing she has no trouble committing to is activism on behalf of children living in poverty. Though she's not a protest singer, Shakira hasn't refrained from social commentary in her songs. And her efforts to improve the education and health of Latin America's poorest children have practically made her a nongovernmental organization unto herself.