shakira's latest

NEW YORK — Ask Shakira about the canine title of her new album, She Wolf, and a decidedly feline smile sweeps across her face.
"Every woman has a she-wolf inside her," the Colombian-born singer/songwriter says. "We all have our secret desires and forbidden dreams, and I'm going through a phase where I want to capture more of that sensuality in my work. For the first time, I'm talking about those things with a little more freedom."

Mind you, Shakira, 32, felt free enough back in 2005 to call her last album Oral Fixation Vol. 2. (The Spanish-language companion, Fijacion Oral Vol. 1, arrived the same year.) But she says She Wolf was "written more from a woman's perspective. That's because I feel more like a woman now, and more like the owner of my life."

That's partly because of age and experience. "I have wonderful friends who are still looking for the right man. I see the struggles women face, trying to be good professionals, to be girlfriends and mothers, to look good and do their jobs well. Dealing with all the pressures and demands from society, it's not easy."

Shakira didn't exclude male collaborators in pursuing her gynocentric vision. Pharrell Williams and John Hill helped write and produce several tracks, and Wyclef Jean– who teamed with Shakira for 2006's smash single Hips Don't Lie– turns up on Spy. Lil Wayne makes a guest appearance on the single Give It Up to Me, No. 29 and rising on USA TODAY's top 40 airplay chart.

"I wanted a very upbeat album, to use dance and electronic (textures) while still keeping a fusion of influences from all over the world." She's part Lebanese, and "being a mutt, I was drawn to those different cultures – it's in my DNA."

Shakira's fans are equally eclectic, says Billboard senior chart manager Keith Caulfield. That makes it tricky to predict her album sales.

"She appeals to younger people, (and) that audience can be satisfied with a track or two," he says. "But she's also a global superstar with a core base she can count on to buy the album the first week. When you're parodied by Taylor Swift on Saturday Night Live, you have a pretty huge following."

Shakira has used that popularity as a platform for philanthropy. In 2006, she helped launch the foundation Latin America in Solidarity Action (better known by the Spanish acronym ALAS, which means "wings") to combat child poverty.

She has built five schools in her country and is raising money for another. "I've seen (education) transform the lives of not only children, but whole families," she says.

"Developing more as a woman" has enabled her to see things more from a mom's perspective. "A she-wolf isn't just a sexual individual; it's someone who strives to realize who she is and defends and nurtures her children. I feel closer to motherhood now, maybe on the threshold of it."

But while Shakira has a long-term boyfriend, Argentine lawyer Antonio de la Rua, she's not ready to settle down completely. "I'm too young to get married," she says, laughing. "I want children first. I'm getting ready to reproduce."

Not quite yet, though. "I feel like a mother who has just delivered a baby with this album" – and she plans to have another, a Spanish-language project, next year. "That's absorbing all my energy for now."