Shakira and Karol G's 'TQG'

Submission 562

Part of a series on Shakira and Bizarrap Sessions #53. [View Related Entries]

About

Shakira and Karol G 'TQG' refers to a 2023 song performed by Colombian artists Shakira and Karol G. Since its release in February, the song has been a trending subject on social media with memes and remixed versions, particularly in reference to the highly publicized divorce between Shakira and Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué.

Origin

On February 24th, 2023, the Karol G YouTube^[1] channel uploaded the music video for the track "TQG," featuring Shakira doing dance moves similar to the 2009 music Beautiful Liar.^[2] The video gained over 87 million views and 4,7 million likes in four days (seen below).

Spread

After the song's release in February, Karol G and Shakira fans did not miss the opportunity to break down the lyrics and video to create funny memes about the singers' former partners, Gerard Piqué and Anuel AA. For instance, on the same day the song was released, Twitter^[3] user @Roa_dice posted a reaction video of the two exes listening to the music for the first time. The post garnered 29,100 views and 1,000 likes in four days.

On TikTok,^[5] ^[6] the music reached 234,100 videos tagged in four days,^[4] with users like @revistawapa showing all the Piqué references in the song. The post (below, left) received 6.6 million views and 403,700 likes in two days. The song also inspired a dance challenge on the platform. In one example, @yanieste performs the dance (below, right), garnering 4.9 million plays and 341,800 likes in one day.