We’ve had some trouble pinning down the birth date of Latina superstar Shakira. Many good sources list her as February 9, 1977, but other sources, just as good, have her as February 2, 1977.
Nobody seems to dispute the 1977 part of the equation, and Shakira herself seems silent on the matter. Her official site is too busy shimmying to address the question. (As an aside, Sony Music is always frustrating in the matter of background information for its artists, preferring to avoid facts in favor of “biographical” puffery like “Shakira has mesmerized music lovers around the world with her words, her music, her vision and her soul.”)
Here are some of the duelling sources for each date:
=February 2=
All Music Guide
Wikipedia
MTV
BBC Music
=February 9=
Gale Group
Hello!
Hispanic Online
ABC News
AOL Music / People Magazine
Normally we trust the Gale Group, that sturdy academic publisher of reference books. On the other hand, the BBC and All Music Guide are good professional sources.
At this point we’ve decided to go with February 2nd, based on a few items. First, the international edition of Who’s Who gives her birthday as February 2nd, and the Who’s Who guides often do get their biographical material directly from their subjects. Also, we were able to find a few newspaper accounts of Shakira celebrating her birthday around February 2, though they didn’t mention the exact date of her birthday. This is not definitive, of course — she could have been celebrating early — but at this point, combined with our other deliberations, it tips the scales to the 2nd.
If you have insider information about the date of Shakira’s birth, please do pass it along.