By Renata Brito
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) --Colombian music star Shakira says she will pay homage to Latin culture alongside Jennifer Lopez at the 2020 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show in Miami.
Speaking in Barcelona, Spain where she lives with her long-term partner, Spanish soccer star Gerard Piquรฉ, and their two children, Shakira told The Associated Press she was fulfilling a dream which also had "a very important purpose."
"To celebrate that culture, to showcase it in a country where Latinos have also struggled a lot," she said. "I feel really humbled and with a great responsibility in my hands to represent the Latino community."
The Grammy winner, who turns 43 on Feb. 2, the day of the Super Bowl, is currently promoting a documentary and live concert album from her 2018 "El Dorado World Tour," to be released worldwide on Nov. 13.
In late 2017, Shakira left fans worried after she was forced to postpone the European part of the tour due to a vocal cord hemorrhage.
"That was probably one of the most difficult times of my life. It was really a nightmare," she recalled. "I didn't know if I was ever going to sing again."
At the time, doctors recommended surgery that carried risks. Shakira chose not to have it, and her voice slowly recovered. But it meant she couldn't speak for long periods of time — a real challenge for a mother of two young children.
"I healed miraculously, really, because the doctors were convinced I needed a medical procedure," she said, adding that without support from her fans she wouldn't have been able to return to the stage.
"I felt so much gratitude, so much joy to be able to sing again," she said. "I think at some point in my life I had taken it for granted."
But the singer has not slowed down since releasing last month a remix of the song "Tutu" with singers Camilo from Colombian and Pedro Capรณ of Puerto Rico.
Shakira is also scheduled to perform at the closing ceremony of the Davis Cup tennis tournament in Madrid on Nov. 24.
Shakira has in the meantime witnessed turmoil in the city she calls home in Spain's northwest region of Catalonia.
The conviction of Catalan separatists over an illegal independence referendum has sparked massive and sometimes violent street protests.
Shakira says the issue requires dialogue between the separatists and Spain's national authorities. Piquรฉ backs the right to a vote on the region's independence.
"I think that in a country where there are clearly disagreements and differences like this one, the best would be to try to build bridges and listen to each other," Shakira said.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this โ and those many "Babadook" memes โ unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables โ "Bah-Bah-Doooook" โ an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More