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Britney, Christina or J.Lo, anyone?
But at least sensual, hip-shaking Colombian firebrand Shakira comes by it honestly. She is half-Lebanese.
"I've been belly-dancing since I was four years old," Shakira, 25, was saying from Miami in an exclusive Canadian newspaper interview with The Sun.
"And nobody taught me how to do it. So it's something that's in my DNA, that I inherited. But I never got the opportunity to show my skills as a belly-dancer because I never did songs with this kind of Arabic element involved before. It seems that people really felt curious about that aspect."
Shakira's English-language pop-rock debut, Laundry Service, has sold more than nine million copies worldwide since its release last year, including almost 500,000 copies in Canada.
She performs her first concert in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday night.
Shakira is quick to point out that there's more to her than just record sales and a beautiful belly, which she nonetheless showed off to amazing effect in her breakout single, Whenever, Wherever.
"That's just a very small portion, or a small aspect, of my artistic personality," she says. "I've been doing this for a long time without necessarily belly-dancing. This is just an accessory that is definitely attractive. But there's much more I feel that I can still share with my fans.
"It seems that there's always something, with each album, that calls attention to people. Sometimes it's the title of an album, sometimes it's the lyrics of some song. This time it's the belly-dancing."
The singer-songwriter, who wrote her first tune at age eight, grew up listening to everything from Donna Summer to Depeche Mode. She was signed to Sony in South America when she was just 13 and has since recorded five Spanish-language albums, including the 2000 concert disc, Shakira MTV Unplugged.
Basically, she's Latin America's star du jour, having picked up a leading five MTV Latin Music Video Music Awards last month in Miami, including artist of the year.
Previously, she won a Grammy and two Latin Grammys. She has been profiled by Nobel laureate Gabriel Garvis Marquez -- Colombia's greatest living writer -- and has been blessed by the Pope.
Most recently, Shakira found herself sharing a Rolling Stone cover with Britney Spears and Mary J. Blige for the "Women In Rock" issue.
The huge crossover success doesn't seemed to have fazed her one little bit.
"Since I was a child, I knew deep inside that I was going to walk this path," she says quietly. "Everybody has a dream, and sometimes some people just have the fortune to make their dreams come true. And I had the good luck to make my dreams as a child become a reality as an adult.
"Everything happened gradually. It didn't happen overnight. And I'm glad because that would have probably been a trauma for me. So life was benevolent enough to give me enough time to assimilate the success. I kind of got time to get used to the glitter of fame, flashes of the camera and the interests of journalists."
The tabloid press has long been pressing her on her relationship with Buenos Aires-based attorney Antonio de la Rua, whose father is the deposed president of Argentina. At one point, Tower Records in that country banned her records. In a Rolling Stone profile that ran in April, she said of de la Rua: "Please don't make me talk about him."
If there was one thing that began Shakira's Spanish-to-English crossover it was the success of her last Spanish-language effort, Donde Estan Los Ladrones? (Where Are The Thieves?), which sold more than 31/2 million copies worldwide.
Executives initially just wanted a straight English translation of the CD, with help from the album's executive producer Emilio Estefan and his wife/singer, Gloria Estefan.
But Shakira, who is managed by Freddy DeMann (Michael Jackson, Madonna, Alanis Morissette), wanted to do more.
When English isn't your first language, however, an improved vocabulary is a must.
And who better to be referred to than two of the master poets -- Leonard Cohen and Walt Whitman?
"I knew about Leonard Cohen," Shakira says. "I'm a reader. I like to read a lot and I like to learn, and I thought that if I was going to write an English album, the best I could do is just go to the masters of literature in English, get a little advice from them."
Shakira set foot in Canada for the first time just this year, when she performed and picked up two awards at the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto in June.
She was noticeably blown away by the reception of the screaming fans on the red carpet, and other besotted attendees. For example, when asked what he was most looking forward to about the show, Sum 41's Cone McCaslin confessed, "Shakira's body."
For her part, Shakira says she was looking forward to forging a stronger relationship with Canadian fans.
"Of course, I knew that the album was doing well in Canada, but I came with my heart swollen with emotion because I felt that there was a true identification between me and the Canadians. I feel like this relationship is just starting. I feel that there's much more to be experienced. So, hopefully with this tour, we'll make this relationship that's great, more solid."
Which brings us to Shakira's road trip -- the so-called Tour Of The Mongoose -- for which she was hard at work, rehearsing 15 hours a day, when this interview was conducted last month.
"I'm a happy woman but a very exhausted woman," she says. "Whenever I put a show together, I like to experiment a little with the songs, (to) rearrange some and just give a new spirit to them. And that's what we did. Some of the songs, I think they sound even better than on the album."
Helping execute Shakira's live production are the show's executive producers, who have worked with the likes of The Rolling Stones and U2. The lighting designer's credits include Paul McCartney and Nine Inch Nails.
"It's the production of my dreams," she says. "It's going to be the show of my dreams. The show I've been wanting to have for 12 years. And I finally got to this point. I finally have everything I ever dreamt about."
Yes, but what about that strange Mongoose tag?
"The mongoose -- I didn't know it existed -- is an animal that could defeat the most venomous snake with a bite," explains Shakira, as only she can. "And to me, the snake is the representation of all the hatred in the world, and the mongoose is a representation of all that can defeat the hatred in our lives.
"I feel we're going through crucial times. I feel that the world is really shattered, but only faith can save us. Only a mongoose can save us from the poison of the snake. So it's kind of a symbol."
That aside, it's an extremely important tour for Shakira. For the first time she will be proving herself in a live setting to English-speaking fans.
"It is a big deal, because I started a relationship with my Anglo fans about a year ago. But like any relationship, right now it's just in its beginning," she says.
"Let's put it this way: I have a beautiful friendship with my fans. We are good friends. But after the tour, we'll be lovers forever. They'll get to know me deeply. They'll get to know me as an artist. Whatever they didn't know about me, they'll know it after the tour."