When we met the Beninese superstar, who has released 16 albums and won five Grammys, she told us that she has been driven by curiosity since she was a child.
“My nickname was ‘when, why and how’. I wanted to understand things, to understand my place in the world ……. I hate being bored,” she says.
“If I’m bored, God help you, please don’t be with me! I’ll be hungry and bored, and then you won’t want to talk to me.”
This Friday, Kidjo, 63, will also be joined by Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour, Grammy-nominated Franco-Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Malouf, Ghana’s hottest dancehall star Stonebwoy, and Britain’s Laura M’Ulla. ‘Ulla) among other world-renowned artists on the same stage.
Remarkably, Kidjo also chose Europe’s first black and multi-racial majority Chineke to accompany the band.
Everything Kijo does seems to stem from her passions, one of which is to relentlessly correct negative perceptions of Africa and challenge Eurocentrism.
“The classical music world really isn’t a diverse place, and I choose to play with Chineke! because we can do whatever we want.
“It’s proof that if we have the mindset that ‘nothing is impossible to achieve’, we can do it. The kids who play in the orchestra are second-, third- and first-generation immigrants from Africa, and they’re fantastic.
In addition to her incredible energy as a performer, one of the most striking things about Kidjo is her interest in engaging with music and musicians from different genres and other parts of the world.
Talking Heads and Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz have both been transformed by Angelique Kidjo, who also recorded a wonderful version of Ravel’s Boléro in 2007.
She says that when she first heard Boléro in Paris and commented on how African it sounded, she was completely ridiculed.
“I said, ‘Well, go ahead, I’ll prove it to you.'”
She then covered most of the instrumental parts of it in her own voice.
“I’m the only artist authorized by the Ravel family today.
Kidjo’s most recent collaboration was with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and they will perform Bach’s version of Sarabande in Paris in December.
“Diversity has never been a threat to me; I see it as an opportunity and a challenge.
This songstress takes every opportunity to use her voice and platform to benefit humanity.
She is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and Oxfam and has her own charity, Batonga, which is dedicated to supporting the education of young girls in Africa.
She regularly attends the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, hoping to influence world leaders.
Kidjo remembers being surprised when the United Nations asked her to organize a concert in 2012 to entice African leaders to sign a resolution banning female genital mutilation.
Kidjo agreed, and as the organizers had hoped, the leaders came. She appealed to them using her father’s example:
“I said to them: ‘I grew up in Benin, my father is African. He fought for us, his children, boys and girls, for our right to choose to be respected, for any traditional rituals that might hurt us.’ When we objected, he said, “This is my job, I am your father.”
“I said to them, ‘If my father can speak out against his society, then none of you sitting here can tell me that you don’t have the power to stop the stupid, painful [customs] that you are inflicting on your daughters.’ For what?
“In December of the same year, Nigeria became the first country to sign the resolution as policy, and all countries signed on.”
She also praised her father for his strong belief in the value of children’s education and his willingness to go into debt to pay school fees for his own children, as well as those of his friends and neighbors.
The home in which Kidjo grew up was a haven for free speech. Her father refused to install a doorbell because he wanted anyone to be able to enter at any time.
But Kidjo’s idyllic childhood was interrupted by the 1972 coup d’état: “From the moment the communist regime came to Benin, I realized that the freedoms we enjoyed could be taken away!
