Inaugurating, however briefly, her regional Mexican music era, Shakira brings us yet another single designed to prepare us for her long-awaited twelfth album. And yet, if Shakira has conditioned us to understand one thing about her, it’s to expect the unexpected in whatever musical route she decides to take. Because who knew something like a corrido would be next in her wheelhouse. At the same time, after such varied-in-style hits as “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” “TQG,” “Acróstico” and “Copa Vacía” earlier this year, nothing Shakira releases should come as a surprise. The only real shock being if she didn’t manage to release a bop…or a song that didn’t feature someone else on it (in this case, Mexican group Fuerza Regida). And this one not only delivers on that front, but also, let’s call it, the People’s Liberation Front (no relation to the organization named as such in countries such as Sri Lanka and Ethiopia). And, yes, like Beyoncé’s anti-work anthem, “Break My Soul,” Shakira is also coming from a place of having never really worked the kind of soul-breaking job she refers to in “El Jefe,” yet still does her best to sound as though she has (hence, the need for co-writers Edgar Barrera, Kevyn Cruz and Manuel Lorente).
But, in contrast to her erstwhile collaborator, Bey, Shakira is far more aggressive in her contempt for thankless, underpaid jobs and the overpaid fat cats who make work so unbearable for the other ninety-nine percent. Because she doesn’t sing a passing verse like, “And I just quit my job I’m gonna find new drive/Damn, they work me so damn hard/Work by nine, then off past five/And they work my nerves/That’s why I cannot sleep at night.” No, instead, the entire song is about work being a fucking scam/joke for anyone who isn’t in a position of power (usually as a result of birth lottery circumstances). And, talking of the nine to five schedule (increasingly outmoded at this juncture), Shakira officially outdoes the anti-The Man anthem that is Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.” That’s right, it only took forty-three years for something as oppressor-despising (hidden behind a “jaunty” tone and rhythm) to come along.
What’s more, “El Jefe” mimics the narrative structure of “9 to 5” in terms of laying out all the rightful complaints from the beginning of the day. From the very moment one opens their eyes to the sound of the alarm that might as well be a death (of the soul) knell. So it is that Shakira opens “El Jefe” with lyrics that translate to: “7:30 the alarm has gone off/I want to be in bed/But it cannot be done/I take the kids at 9/The same coffee, the same kitchen/The same always, the same routine/Another shitty day/Another day at the office.” In 1980, Parton phrased that opening as, “Tumble out of bed/And stumble to the kitchen/Pour myself a cup of ambition/And yawn and stretch and try to come to life…/Out on the streets, the traffic starts jumpin’/For folks like me on the job from 9 to 5.”
Parton then serves up the iconic chorus, “Workin’ 9 to 5/What a way to make a livin’/Barely gettin’ by/It’s all takin’ and no givin’/They just use your mind/And they never give you credit.” Shakira feels much the same as she sings, “I have a shitty boss who doesn’t pay me well/I arrive walking/And he in a Mercedes-Benz [again, Dolly correlation]/He has me as a recruit/The son of a bitch/You’re dreaming of leaving the neighborhood/You have everything to be a millionaire/Expensive tastes, the mentality/You only need the salary.”
In the accompanying video, Shakira plays up the regional Mexican tone with a Texana aesthetic that comes complete with cowboy hat, cowboy boots, leather fringe skirt, bombastic belt and some zapateado stylings intermixed with her own renowned “hip work.” Directed by Jora Frantzis, who has already dabbled with Latina mamis in the past (i.e., directing videos for Jennifer Lopez and Cardi B), scenes of Shakira on a horse that taps its hooves to the beat (something that deserves a visual effects award because that can’t be real) are quickly interspersed with scenes of immigrants on a train making their way, presumably, to the U.S. border. Where, as Shakira describes, they’ll be met with working conditions that can best be described as glorified slavery. No wonder she’s quick to urge, “Stick it to the man” in between scenes of warehouse workers (played by Fuerza Regida members) carrying too many boxes on their shoulders (perhaps a dig at Amazon, as famed for its “low” prices as it is for never giving warehouse pickers a bathroom break).
Soon, we see Shakira and Fuerza Regida joining the other aspiring Americans on the back of a boxcar as Shakira continues to speak on her rage regarding racial and class inequality (for the former is directly related to the latter, particularly in “anyone can be anything” America). Shakira, too, seems well-versed in the fact that it’s just as Dolly said: “It’s a rich man’s game/No matter what they call it/And you spend your life/Putting money in his wallet.” Ergo, “What irony, what madness/This is torture/You kill yourself from dawn to dusk and you don’t even have a writing.” That last word a botched translation from “escritura,” which can also mean a deed (as in: to property) or a “document”/“papers” (as in: the legal “right” to be somewhere).
For good measure, Shakira also adds another dig at Gerard Piqué by calling out his father with the insult, “They say there is no evil/That lasts more than a hundred years/But there is still my ex father-in-law who has not set foot in the grave.” So much for a temporary peace between the two exes (yet perhaps it’s only fair considering Shakira took aim earlier this year at her ex mother-in-law through a carefully-curated witch display). But this song has nothing to do with getting revenge on an ex (unless it’s an ex-boss). No, it’s all in service of buttressing the proletariat…or at least comforting them by assuring that someone is very aware of what they’re going through (even if from their own perch on Millionaires’ Row).
Which is why, at the one-minute, forty-four-second mark of the video, things take a turn toward the indoors, with Frantzis focusing on the fat cats (literally fat, obviously) themselves as they sit at a banquet table. And what’s on the menu? Why, the proletariat, of course! A.k.a. Jesus Ortiz Paz’s (Fuerza Regida’s lead singer) head on a platter, John the Baptist-style. What the fat cats hadn’t bargained for (just as Franklin Hart hadn’t bargained for Violet, Doralee or Judy), however, was a calmly irate Shakira showing up to walk on their table and approach the so-called “jefe” at the head of it with an expression that says, “I’m the jefe now, bitch.”
As for the mention of her former-turned-current nanny, Lili Melgar, by declaring, “This song’s for you/They didn’t pay you compensation,” well, that’s another direct hit at Piqué. Who apparently fired Melgar after she tipped Shakira off to a “third presence” visiting their house all the time before she finally clocked the suspiciously diminished contents of the jam jar.
The last shot in the video returns to a defiant-looking Shakira (dressed in her all-red cowgirl ensemble—because, sooner or later, the oppressed becomes the oppressor, right?) on her horse as she stares into the camera. As though daring the jefes of the world to try to keep her or her “kind” down. But, no matter who you are or where you’re from (to paraphrase the Backstreet Boys), there is always common ground to be had in the shared experience of how much work blows chunks (at pretty much any pay grade, to boot).
For even the white men known as Blink-182 once said, “Work sucks, I know.” And so does Shakira. Or at least she can “get into the headspace” of knowing, if “El Jefe” is any indication. Thus, the only thing that could be more triumphant than this anti-work anthem is an official mashup (à la “Numb/Encore”) of it with “9 to 5.”
