'Women don't cry any more, they cash in': Shakira turns Madrid into a festival of empowerment

The Colombian pop star returns to Spain after eight years with a 12-show residency in Madrid, celebrating Latin culture and turning a chapter of her life into a spectacle of music, freedom and empowerment.

There are little girls barely a metre off the ground. Women who could be their mothers and others old enough to be their grandmothers. There are Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvians and Spaniards, but also Germans, Dutch and Danes. Some wear purple wigs. Others, coin skirts. Many, glitter. And when the howling starts, for a few hours they are all the same: she-wolves.

Shakira did not want to come back to Spain with just a simple concert. No, she wanted to come back in style.

Eight years after her last tour in the country, the Colombian star has chosen Madrid for the only European residency of 'Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour' (Women No Longer Cry): 12 shows, more than 600,000 tickets and a temporary stadium built for her and her fans in the south of the capital, that can welcome around 55,000 people a night.

And around the stage she has practically built a city. It is called Macondo Park, in tribute to the universe of Gabriel García Márquez, and it offers food, music, literature, children’s areas, exhibitions and a second stage.

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