Hips Don't Lie

By early 2006 Shakira's English album Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 was selling only moderately, and Epic Records wanted a hit to revive it. The answer came from Wyclef Jean. According to one account, the song had started life as "Lips Don't Lie", an unfinished track for a Fugees reunion that collapsed; according to another, when the label asked Jean to remix "La Tortura" he refused and offered a song he thought would suit her perfectly instead: "Dance Like This", which he had recorded for the 2004 film Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Shakira and Jean rebuilt it as Latin pop with a reggaeton beat, borrowed the rhythm of Surinamese kawina, and kept the salsa trumpet line sampled from Jerry Rivera's 1992 "Amores Como el Nuestro". Rivera publicly accused Shakira of taking it without his knowledge, not realising the rights had already been cleared with his former label. The title came from her studio habit: she judged whether a song was ready by whether it made her dance, and would tell her musicians that her hips do not lie. It went to number one in 18 countries and became her first and only number one on the Billboard Hot 100, breaking the record for the most radio plays in a single week and becoming the fastest-selling digital download in the United States. She sang a new version at the closing ceremony of the 2006 World Cup in Berlin. A rescue job for a slow-selling album became the biggest hit of Shakira's career and one of the best-selling singles of all time.