Shakira’s “Try Everything” is easy to remember as an uncomplicated burst of encouragement: bright drums, an instantly repeatable chorus and a message about recovering from failure. Its real achievement is more specific. Written by Sia Furler and the Norwegian duo Stargate for Disney’s Zootopia, the recording functions simultaneously as a Shakira single, a hit by the film’s fictional star Gazelle and an expression of Judy Hopps’s stubborn optimism.
That three-way identity also created a muddled historical trail. Dates in 2015 and early 2016 have variously been labeled announcements, leaks, releases and video premieres. The surviving evidence supports a clear conclusion: the song was announced in 2015 and officially previewed that December, but its documented commercial release arrived on January 8, 2016.
A pop star playing a pop star
Disney announced Shakira’s involvement at its D23 Expo on August 14, 2015. As contemporary coverage recorded, she would voice Gazelle—the animal metropolis’s biggest pop celebrity—and perform a new song called “Try Everything.” Shakira’s announcement, preserved by LOS40, explicitly described the track as being for the forthcoming film.
Gazelle is not one of Zootopia’s central detectives, but she is important to its world-building. Casting an internationally recognizable Colombian singer as the city’s most visible entertainer helps make Zootopia feel culturally expansive rather than provincial. In a January 2016 interview, Shakira described finding similarities between herself and the character, while Disney positioned Gazelle as a public voice for coexistence. Entertainment Tonight’s contemporary interview confirms that the singer supplied both Gazelle’s speaking voice and the soundtrack performance.
This distinction matters for the credits. “Try Everything” is performed by Shakira, but it is not documented as a Shakira composition. The credited songwriters are Sia Furler, Mikkel S. Eriksen and Tor Erik Hermansen—the latter two collectively known as Stargate.
The release date, the preview and the supposed leak
A historical web address dated December 2015 once advertised a “full” version of the track. A dated third-party page, however, does not establish either an authorized release or a genuine leak. No surviving label announcement, official storefront record or reputable contemporary report corroborates a full commercial release in December.
What can be verified is a sanctioned preview. A report published on December 31, 2015, described a 30-second excerpt posted by Shakira, accompanying promotional footage for the film. Calling that excerpt a leak would be inaccurate: it was artist-led publicity. If a complete recording appeared elsewhere before January 8, it was not the documented official edition, and the surviving evidence is insufficient to authenticate what the old page actually carried.
The strongest release evidence is the Walt Disney Records single listing. Spotify dates the one-track Try Everything (From “Zootopia”) release to January 8, 2016. Contemporary Disney social promotion likewise announced that the single was available to download that day. The listing’s ℗ 2015 notice indicates the master’s copyright year; it does not convert 2015 into the public release year.
Other dates describe different products or territories. Disney’s own D23 site reported on January 26 that the complete song was already available on iTunes. A European single titled “From Zootropolis”—the film’s name in several markets—is dated February 5 by Apple Music. That is a regional edition, not evidence that the January release was unofficial. The full US soundtrack followed digitally on February 12, according to Spotify’s album metadata, while Disney’s March 4 label announcement marked the film’s US opening and broader soundtrack campaign. These entries explain why February and March dates recur without displacing January 8 as the single’s defining release.
Who made the recording
The Recording Academy confirms Eriksen, Hermansen and Furler as the songwriters in its official 2017 Grammy nomination record. Stargate also produced the recording. Metadata supplied with the authorized audio credits Mikkel Eriksen, Miles Walker, Mike Anderson and Dave Clauss as recording engineers, with Phil Tan handling the mix.
Those credits locate the song firmly within the polished, globally oriented pop that Stargate had refined across the previous decade. The arrangement opens with a light, springy rhythmic figure before broadening into handclaps, layered percussion, guitars and gleaming synthesized textures. Its verses leave room around Shakira’s voice; the choruses fill that space with stacked vocals and a chant-like hook. The production is carefully buoyant rather than aggressive, allowing it to accompany children’s animation without sounding like a novelty record.
Shakira’s vocal character keeps the track from becoming anonymous motivational pop. Her grainy consonants and quick changes between chest voice and a lighter upper register introduce friction into an otherwise immaculate production. That is a critical interpretation rather than a documented production claim, but it helps explain the performance’s emotional credibility: she sounds as though she is pushing through the melody, not merely reciting reassurance.
Claims that “Try Everything” originated as an unreleased Fifth Harmony recording have circulated online. In the absence of a verifiable label document, publishing record, authenticated demo or on-record confirmation from the writers, that story should be treated as unproven. The documented released recording is Shakira’s Walt Disney Records master.
Why the song belongs to Judy Hopps
In Zootopia, Judy listens to “Try Everything” during her train journey from rural Bunnyburrow into the metropolis. Disney confirms the film’s US theatrical release date as March 4, 2016. The sequence is more than a convenient place for a soundtrack single: Judy is entering a city she has idealized, carrying ambitions that almost everyone around her considers unrealistic.
The song’s philosophy is not that effort guarantees victory. It repeatedly pairs persistence with mistakes, falling and beginning again. That nuance fits Judy’s story unusually well. She reaches her professional goal but makes damaging assumptions, contributes to a civic crisis and must acknowledge her failure before she can help repair it. The chorus therefore changes meaning as the film progresses. Initially it sounds like self-belief; by the end, it sounds like an argument for correction and renewed effort.
Musically, the repeated upward gestures and expanding chorus mirror the train sequence’s visual unveiling of the city. This is interpretation, but the alignment is precise: each new district seems to enlarge both Judy’s imagined future and the record’s sonic space. When Gazelle performs the song during the closing celebration, the private music in Judy’s headphones has become a communal anthem. The shift links an individual dream to the more difficult collective work of living together.
The official video and the song’s long afterlife
Disney Music published the full official “Try Everything” video on March 3, 2016. It intercuts Shakira singing in a studio with finished footage from Zootopia, including Gazelle’s concert performance. It should not be confused with earlier promotional excerpts, fan edits or later automated audio uploads. The rights-holder video is the relevant official visual edition.
The song subsequently earned a nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 59th Grammy Awards. Its commercial life also extended well beyond the film’s opening: the RIAA database records a new Walt Disney Records certification dated March 10, 2025, demonstrating continued US consumption nearly nine years after release.
In 2025 Shakira returned as Gazelle in Zootopia 2, but its featured pop song was a separate recording, “Zoo.” Disney’s sequel announcement explicitly identifies that later composition as new. The distinction protects the chronology of “Try Everything”: it belongs to the first film and to Judy’s first encounter with the city.
Its durability comes from that narrative fit. Removed from Zootopia, “Try Everything” remains expertly constructed family pop. Inside the film, it acquires a more persuasive idea—that optimism is meaningful only when it leaves room for error, accountability and another attempt. Shakira did not write that argument, but her unmistakable performance gave it both a real-world star and an animated one.