Billboard Music Award for Top Latin Song

Lore & Background

By the time the 2007 Billboard Music Awards rolled around, 'Hips Don't Lie' had already done the unthinkable: it had spent weeks pinned at the top of the Hot 100 while simultaneously sweeping Latin radio and streaming charts. The song's DNA was a collision—Wyclef Jean's hip-hop cadence married to Shakira's melodic phrasing over a reggaeton dembow groove—and the Billboard board's decision to crown it Top Latin Song was less a surprise than a formality. The real shock had been the initial radio pushback; many Anglo programmers had refused to touch it, and the song's climb to number one was a slow, stubborn conquest rather than an instant drop.

For Shakira, the trophy represented a broader arc. After years of being categorized as 'the Latin pop star who occasionally sings in English,' she was now the artist whose English-language-adjacent records were outperforming purely Anglo releases. The award night became a cultural flashpoint: fans in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and the U.S. Hispanic community treated it as a collective victory, while Anglo pop audiences were forced to reckon with the fact that the year's biggest hit carried a Spanish-language hook and a reggaeton backbeat.

The moment also deepened the Wyclef Jean–Shakira partnership in the public imagination. Their chemistry on the track—his dry, rhythmic delivery against her soaring, percussive vocal—became a template that the pop industry would chase for years. In the fan community, the Top Latin Song win is often cited as the single clearest proof that Shakira had transcended the 'Latin' label entirely, even as the award's very category name kept tacking that label back on.

In Their Own Story

The backstage corridor smelled like hairspray and cold champagne. Shakira stood in front of a mirror, her gold-sequined gown catching the fluorescent light, and practiced the smile she'd been given by her PR team. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you—' she murmured, then stopped. She did not want to sound rehearsed. She wanted to sound like the woman who had spent eighteen months in a Miami studio arguing with a drummer about the exact placement of a dembow kick.

A producer's assistant knocked on the door. 'You're on in four.'

She closed her eyes and heard it—the ghost of the track, Wyclef's voice layered under hers, the crowd in Bogotá three years earlier screaming the hook back at her like a chant. She opened her eyes, grabbed the small gold statuette from the tray, and walked toward the stage lights. The applause hit her like warm water. She set the trophy on the podium, looked out at the sea of faces, and said, very quietly, 'This is for every radio station that told us it didn't fit their format.'

The room erupted. Somewhere in the back, a Colombian fan in a hand-painted jersey was crying into her phone. Shakira smiled, picked up the trophy again, and let the flashbulbs do the rest.

Reader's Guide

Award: Billboard Music Award for Top Latin Song Year: 2007 ceremony (2006 eligibility period) Category: Top Latin Song Song: "Hips Don't Lie" featuring Wyclef Jean Album: Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 (2005)

Shakira accepted the Top Latin Song trophy at the 2007 Billboard Music Awards, recognizing "Hips Don't Lie" as the year's most dominant Latin-track on the Billboard charts. The song, a collaboration with Wyclef Jean, had spent multiple weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it one of the highest-charting Latin-influenced tracks in the chart's history at that point.

The win was notable for its crossover significance. "Hips Don't Lie" blended reggaeton rhythms, hip-hop delivery, and pop melody into a single track that simultaneously topped Anglo and Latin charts, and the Billboard board's choice to honor it under the Top Latin Song banner acknowledged the song's roots while celebrating its mainstream dominance.

For Shakira, the award marked a pivotal moment in her career trajectory: she transitioned from being perceived primarily as a Latin-market artist to being recognized as a global pop force whose records could outperform purely Anglo releases. The Wyclef Jean partnership also became a defining collaboration in both artists' catalogs.

The song was drawn from the album Fijación Oral, Vol. 1, which itself became one of the best-selling Latin albums of the 2000s, further underscoring the commercial magnitude of the release that earned the trophy.

Did You Know?

• "Hips Don't Lie" was initially resisted by many Anglo radio programmers who felt its reggaeton groove and Spanish-language hook did not fit their playlists; its eventual climb to number one on the Hot 100 was a slow, wee
• The song's dembow rhythm and hip-hop structure made it a rare track that simultaneously topped the Billboard Hot 100 and Latin Airplay charts in the same reporting period.
• Shakira and Wyclef Jean's vocal interplay on the track—his rhythmic, almost spoken delivery contrasted with her melodic, percussive phrasing—became a widely imitated formula in pop-reggaeton crossovers for the following
• The 2007 Billboard Music Awards ceremony featured Shakira performing the song live, and the performance clip became one of the most-viewed Latin music videos on early streaming platforms at the time.