Angélique Kidjo has blessed the world music stage for over 40 years and she continues to travel and perform, spreading her message of musical and cultural diversity. Born in 1960, she is celebrating her 64th birthday today, July 14.
She crosses physical borders and musical boundaries, exuding joy and unity in a time when we need more than ever to come together as a global community to combat the world’s ills.
If you are not familiar with her, I hope this will be a welcome introduction. And if you are one of her millions of fans, come join me in wishing her a very happy birthday, with many more to come.
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with 220 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
All About Jazz writes:
A powerful singer and tireless performer, Angélique Kidjo has been one of the most successful performers to emerge on world music stages in the 1990s and 2000s. Her music not only draws from African traditions but also interprets the ways those traditions developed after Africans were seized and taken to the New World. Thus elements of American soul, funk, rap, and jazz, Brazilian samba, Jamaican reggae, and Cuban and Puerto Rican salsa all show up on her recordings, along with various African styles
Kidjo is a native of Benin, on Africa's Atlantic coast adjacent to Nigeria; the first of her eight languages was Fon. She was born in the coastal city of Ouidah on July 14, 1960, to government postal official Franck Kidjo (an enthusiastic photographer and banjo player on the side) and his choreographer wife Yvonne. Kidjo was lucky enough to have parents who backed her performing ambitions--female popular vocalists are rare in many African countries. Among her eight siblings were several brothers who started a band when she was young, inspired by James Brown and other American stars who flooded Benin's airwaves. Kidjo was musically eclectic from the start, listening avidly to juju sounds from neighboring Nigeria, to pop music from other African countries, to Cuban salsa music. But, her firsr love was the traditional music which she grew up with.
Kidjo made her stage debut at age six with her mother's dance troupe, and in the late 1970s she formed a band of her own and recorded an album that featured a cover version of a song by another of Kidjo's idols, South African singer Miriam Makeba. In 1980, however, Kidjo found her musical activities restricted by a New Leftist regime that took power in Benin and tried to force her to record political anthems. Kidjo fled to Paris in 1983 with the intent of studying law there and becoming a human rights lawyer. But she realized that she was not cut out for political life.
From her website biography:
Five-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo is one of the greatest artists in international music today, a creative force with sixteen albums to her name.
Time Magazine has called her "Africa's premier diva", and named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world for 2021. The BBC has included her in its list of the continent's 50 most iconic figures, and in 2011 The Guardian listed her as one of their Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World. Forbes Magazine has ranked Angélique as the first woman in their list of the Most Powerful Celebrities in Africa. She is the recent recipient of the prestigious 2015 Crystal Award given by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the 2016 Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award, the 2018 German Sustainability Award, the 2023 Vilcek Prize in Music, and the 2023 Polar Music Prize.
As a performer, her striking voice, stage presence and fluency in multiple cultures and languages have won respect from her peers and expanded her following across national borders. Kidjo has cross-pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America.
[...]
Angélique also travels the world advocating on behalf of children in her capacity as a UNICEF and OXFAM goodwill Ambassador. At the G7 Summit in 2019, President Macron of France named Kidjo as the spokesperson for the AFAWA initiative (Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa) to help close the financing gap for women entrepreneurs in Africa. She has also created her own charitable foundation, Batonga, dedicated to support the education of young girls in Africa.
Kidjo described herself in 2010 for a New York Times op-ed titled “Daughter of Independence”:
Like a true revolutionary, I was born on Bastille Day (July 14), 1960, in Dahomey, which was then a part of the French Empire in West Africa. A few days later, on August 1st, 50 years ago this month, my country was declared independent: I was French for just 18 days! It is not easy for me to judge the 50 years of independence of my small country, now called Benin. I feel that my life has been shaped in many ways by the political tribulations of West Africa. I consider myself a true daughter of my country’s recent independence.
As a French colony, Dahomey provided lots of civil servants for much of the West African region. It used to be called the “Latin Quarter” of Africa because of its number of intellectuals and doctors. And so although I was already making a living as a teenager with my singing career, my parents insisted that I dedicate myself to school because we lived in such a great educational and cultural environment. By the 10th grade, I was already studying philosophy, and debating the merits of Rousseau and Camus with my friends.
[...]
When the many political intrigues made the country unstable, a military group came from the North and took power in 1972, hoping that wealth would be redistributed equally. This group also thought that eradicating Western culture and influence would be a solution to all of our problems. Marxism-Leninism was officially adopted by the state. Before I could speak with anyone I saw on the street, I had to salute them with “Ready for Revolution, the fight goes on!” Everyone stood behind the revolution when the famous French mercenary Bob Denard, following orders given to him by the French secret service, tried in vain to invade Benin.
She goes on to talk about having to live in exile while drawing strength from her culture. In 2023, Nigerian writer and editor Uzoma Ihejirika wrote “The Enduring Magic of Angélique Kidjo” for Native:
In 1981, at the age of 21, she released her first album ‘Pretty’ with the assistance of Cameroonian Makossa legend Ekambi Brillant. The album made Kidjo a star in her home country and neighbouring countries.
Here’s the full album:
Ihejirika continues:
A few years later, Kidjo was forced to flee Benin due to the difficult political climate orchestrated by Mathieu Kérékou, the country’s leader at that time. She settled in Paris, France where she began attending Centre d’informations musicales (CIM), a school of jazz and contemporary music. It was in Paris that Kidjo immersed herself in the proponents of what is known as world music, fusing her African influences with foreign genres and sounds. In 1991, after signing with Island Records, she released her major label debut album ‘Logozo.’ The project enjoyed both critical and commercial success and cemented Kidjo’s style of singing in different African languages—Fon, Yoruba, Goun, Mina—and in French as well as her made-up language.
She followed up ‘Logozo’ with ‘Ayé’ (1994). The album spawned the hit track “Agolo,” whose music video celebrated African religions (featuring a Zangbeto masquerade and the serpent deity Ayida-Weddo) and earned Kidjo her first Grammy nomination. Her 1996 album ‘Fifa’ was the first time Kidjo added English to her repertoire of languages she sang in. The album, for which she enlisted the help of percussionists in villages across Benin, was deemed as Kidjo’s crossover attempt as it blended her signature African-inspired rhythms with Funk, Hip-Hop and Pop, with “Wombo Lombo” being the lead single. She continued her musical foray into newer grounds with ‘Oremi’ (1998), ‘Black Ivory Soul’ (2002) and ‘Oyaya!’ (2004). The three projects were Kidjo’s way of starting a conversation with the African tradition and its roots in the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean.
I’ve posted three compilation videos below, which cover a large portion (close to four hours) of her music:
It’s important to hear from Kidjo herself. Given our current state of affairs here in the U.S., where we are regularly subjected to some pretty bad so-called journalism, I found her 2014 remarks for the Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists to be on point. She spoke about the importance of diverse journalism and nonracist perspectives, especially when writing about Africa.
This 11-minute interview with Kidjo took place in 1992.
Brotherwhitelion’s notes:
Angélique talks about her early life in Ouidah, Benin. (Benin is a small Northern African coastal country that lies between the borders of Togo and Nigeria.)Angélique tells of her reasons for moving to Paris, her musical influences and the emergence of "World Music".Ewa Ka Djo, which means "Let's Dance", was filmed during her 1992 Australian tour! The interviewer is Annette Shun Wah.
Wé Wé and Ewa Ka Djo both feature on the 1992 LP Logozo, released on the Mango label through Island Records. Wé Wé was also released as a 12" 45rpm Single with three added remixes, and an instrumental.
Fast forward 10 years to Kechy Eke’s interview with Kidjo for “Talks at Google,” in 2022:
In September 2022, Kidjo performed in an NPR Tiny Desk Concert.
NPR Music’s notes:
Today we celebrate the 1,000th concert the Tiny Desk team has captured and published, and I can't imagine a more inspiring spirit to help us celebrate than Angélique Kidjo. Originally from the West African country of Benin, the singer and activist plays a crucial role in spreading the music of Africa and the spirit of love in all that she does. When I started the Tiny Desk series in April 2008, I never imagined its impact. So many artists' voices have been raised and shared with music fans worldwide through these performances. When Angélique was preparing for her Tiny Desk concert, she thought it would be a good idea to watch some past concerts for inspiration. It's then she saw Sampa The Great's home concert from Zambia and immediately reached out in hopes of collaborating. Now here they are, at NPR, brought together by a series that has been blessed with so much talent and a global audience with big ears and open arms. Angélique Kidjo's band drives the energy and melody as they perform songs from her 2021 album Mother Nature and then dig back a decade to perform the song "Afirika," encouraging strength for the African people. The celebration concludes as Angélique Kidjo pays tribute to her friend and mentor Miriam Makeba by performing her 1967 global hit, "Pata Pata." It was a lovely way to shine a light on how we can impact each other's lives through music.
Zabrina Lo wrote about Kidjo for Tatler in February 2024:
Angélique Kidjo is a five-time Grammy winner, human and women’s rights activist, Unicef Goodwill Ambassador—and she’s not nearly done
While the majority of her work is inspired by her African roots and experiences, Kidjo says a lot of the topics she sings about are universal, and that “it’s always very important for me to entertain people and tell shared human stories” when she performs overseas. “We live in a world that is so interconnected that the issues we have in Africa are pretty much [seen] everywhere,” she says.
Take Mother Nature, which she wrote during the pandemic, as an example. At first, she meant for the album to be a conversation about what is important for African youth. “As I was [locked down], I thought about how we could engage the young generation of African artists in the topic of climate change,” she says. The singer invited them to write to her; some of them even sent her songs and picked the subjects they felt Kidjo should sing about. But she soon realised that it had potential to create far wider impact. “Climate change for them is not only about Mother Nature but also sustainability and social justice. We don’t see the interconnectivity, but the pandemic has shown us that even though we live in different parts of the Earth, nature doesn’t discriminate. We were all at lockdown at one point. We all breathe the same air.”
Here’s her live performance of “Mother Nature” at the World Economic Forum in 2023.
Give a listen to her rousing live concert at the Festival International de Louisiane in 2023:
I’m closing with her epic tour de force “Choose Love,” which has a powerful message for us all.
Lyrics:
Hey, we’ve been here before
All the world’s up in flames
That don’t fix anything
Must be some other way
So much blood on the floor
Now we can’t hide the stain
That won’t fix anything
Must be some other way
[...]
[Verse]
Had a beautiful dream that I woke up and all the bombs in the world had been loaded
An unusual twist to our fate because none of them had any order demoted
It was almost the end of the world as we know it, the moment had never been closer
When we came out of hiding and crying, we decided it was time to start loving each other
[Chorus]
Let’s be stronger than our fathers
Free ourselves and please our mothers
Can’t you see we can’t be governed
If we choose love, if we choose love
If we choose love, if we choose love? (Love, love)
We… choose love
Happy birthday, Madame Kidjo!
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