If there is anyone who can help Shakira get over her split from Gerard Piqué, it’s Cardi B.
Shakira, 47, released Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Women No Longer Cry) on Friday, March 22, her 12th studio album and first LP since she and Piqué, 37, split after 12 years together. Though Shakira has used her music to express her pain and anger toward her ex, she was in a different mood when she linked up with Cardi, 31, on the track “Puntería” (“Aim”)
“You have a good aim / You know where to hit me so that I remain surrendered,” Shakira sings (translated from Spanish). “You attack me where it hurts the most, you don’t suit me / But in your bed or mine I forget all that.”
Driving the point home – literally – Shakira appears as a divine goddess of love in the “Puntería” music video. She appears as one part Cupid, one part Artemis as she floats over a field of Centaurs. After securing her quarry, she nurses the hunk back to health.
When Cardi, who identifies as Afro-Latina, comes in, she cranks up the heat. “Dame de tu fire,” she sings, meaning “Give me your fire,” before adding, “I’m from the Bronx, but I got a Georgia peach. / I got a empanada, mama, that he love to eat / Loba like Shaki, tú ere’ mi tigre / Muérdeme duro, de este culo nunca te olvide.”
(“You are my tiger / Bite me hard, I will never forget this ass,” Cardi sings in her final lines, according to the translated lyrics.)
Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, Shakira’s first album in seven years, also features appearances by Rauw Alejandro (“Cohete”), Grupo Frontera (“Entre Paréntesis”), Fuerza Regida (“El Jefe”), Manuel Turizo (“Copa Vacía”), and Ozuna (“Montonia”). The album also features “Acróstico,” a song featuring her and Piqué’s sons, Milan, 11, and Sasha, 9.
“Making this body of work has been an alchemical process,” Shakira previously said about this album. “While writing each song, I was rebuilding myself. While singing them, my tears transformed into diamonds, and my vulnerability into strength.”
In a March 16 interview with The Sunday Times, Shakira said she “put my career on hold” to support Piqué while he played for F.C. Barcelona. “There was a lot of sacrifice for love,” she said. Shakira also told Billboard in September 2023 that her priority was “my home, my family.”
“But my biggest dream, more than collecting platinum albums and Grammys, was to raise my sons with their father,” she said. “Overcome obstacles and grow old together. I know I’m not getting that now.”