Shakira recently made headlines with her revelation about having Igbo ancestry. “the world will hear the Igbo story through me.” she declared. According to her statement, her great-grandfather and grandmother were from the Igbo tribe in Nigeria, and her father is a survivor of the Biafra War, which led him to migrate to the United States.
Shakira expressed her connection to her Igbo roots, describing the Igbo people as “a people of resilience, rhythm, and unshakable pride”. She also mentioned that her great-grandfather was among those who perished in the Igbo Landing tragedy, a 19th-century event where enslaved Igbo men and women drowned in defiance rather than submit to slavery.
Shakira’s ancestry is already known to be diverse, with her father being of Lebanese descent and her mother having Spanish, Indigenous, and African roots.
Her Lebanese heritage comes from her paternal grandparents, who were Lebanese immigrants. Her mother’s ancestry includes Spanish, Indigenous, African, Catalan, Basque, Galician, and Italian/Sicilian roots.
