Angelique Kidjo: the diva from Benin could win a record sixth Grammy AwardKidjo's fame continues to grow globally, particularly during Grammy season, she's been nominated for the Grammy Awards in the US 14 times
by The Conversation
01-02-2023 16:55
in Music
Angelique Kidjo: the diva from Benin could win a record sixth Grammy Award
Image via instagrame @angeliquekidjo
Angelique Kidjo, the energetic singer-songwriter and activist from the Republic of Benin, represents a rare African phenomenon.
--
In many respects, she belongs to the illustrious musical lineage of Mama Africas - the likes of South Africa's Miriam Makeba, Letta Mbulu and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Cape Verde's Cesaria Evora and Mali's Oumou Sangare.
These powerful maternal personages are distinctive for their regal bearing, a grand sense of responsibility in sharing Africa's cultural heritage, and protecting the dignity of the African woman. They may not always articulate this political and aesthetic worldview in so many words, but their carriage says it all.
Posing with her 2020 Grammy. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images Mama Africas could be defined by the strength of their voices, their rich and colourful cultural pedigree and their duty to preserve what has been handed over to them through centuries of toil, conflict and creative resilience.
--
Kidjo's fame continues to grow globally, particularly during Grammy season. Nominated for the Grammy Awards in the US 14 times since 1995, she lifted her first in 2008 and went on to win Best World Music Album in 2015, 2016, 2020 and 2022 (when the title changed to Best Global Music Album).
Her five Grammys match the record of South Africa's isiZulu a capella outfit Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Kidjo is up for more wins in 2023 for Best Global Music Album and also for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the movie The Woman King. Her album entry, a collaboration with French-Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, is called Queen of Sheba.
--
AGOLO The 62-year-old West African pop star has jammed with music stars ranging from Quincy Jones and Buddy Guy to Mavis Staples and Chaka Khan. Her debut album Parakou was released in 1990, but it took her hit song Agolo for her to burst into global reckoning and galvanise the world's dance floors in 1994.
In the Yoruba language agolo refers to the metaphysical significance of time, a cyclical phenomenon conjoining life with death - life being a gift that must be cherished and lived wisely. Agolo was a fervent wail of catharsis from the womb of Africa, bearing swathes of history, suffering and defiance. It shook souls and moved feet through its rhythmic sense of elation and release.
In the video there's an androgynous energy about the artist with the closely cropped hair. A suggestion that she's possessed by the indefatigable endurance of a real queen like Nzinga of Angola, Yaa Asantewaa of the old Gold Coast or Amina of the Hausa kingdom of Zazzau. They had to lead men to war, often with great success.
However Kidjo, like her fellow Mama Africas, does not bear arms in inscribing herself on the global canvas of cultural production, which is as competitive as any other. She is from the territory of the controversial Agoodjies, the Amazons of Dahomey. During the colonial era, they served as the king's private army and dominated the slave trade in and around today's Benin. The Hollywood movie The Woman King has revived attention on the questions of their feminine power and gender-blending energies.
It is a fallacy to view femininity in a simplistic or one dimensional manner. It is both multiple and diverse and Kidjo seems to have been nurtured on this fundamental philosophy.
ALSO READ: Grammys 2023: Here's who will attend/ skip music's biggest night
FIERCENESS A multi-genre artist, Kidjo sings traditional Benin folk songs, deep blues, fervid West African R&B, hard rock and urban club bangers in multiple languages with Fon, Yoruba, French and English being her main modes of expression.
In person, Kidjo is spry and compact; she radiates fierceness. At a pre-Grammy performance she once galvanised an entire hall of industry executives and music pundits. This is too sleepy for me, she said, hopping off the stage and walking into the audience, led by her confident voice.
Her singing isn't dreamy or silky like some phony, over-sexualised diva. Rather it acts as a gutsy surge of affirmation towards visibility, justice and freedom.
She is outspoken in her belief that all music comes from Africa, much carried with it by enslaved people. That Africa represents the heart of the blues and the many musical forms it influenced and that her descendants have distributed it across the world, carrying with it joy, enlightenment and upliftment.
SPIRITUALITY Some of Kidjo's songs celebrate ancient forms of African spirituality. Benin is renowned for being an epicentre of spirituality, particularly through Vodun, a polytheistic belief that serves multiple deities and emphasises the links and continuities between woman and man, nature and divinity, life and death, the ancestors and the living.
In this, Kidjo's aesthetic project seems undeniably political, almost in the same way that Makeba's was. But, rather than directly targeting established political institutions such as the United Nations to effect social change, as Makeba did, Kidjo aims for a revolution of the mind and spirit. It is the sort of approach to be expected from one born and bred in the land of the loas, a pantheon of deities comprising Legba, god of the crossroads, among others.
ALSO READ: New music loading': Gqom queen Babes Wodumo back in studio
Kidjo is also knowledgeable on the Ifa spirituality of the Yoruba people, to whom her mother belongs - some of whom live in Benin.
When one thinks of Ki
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
New appointments to Screen Australia board 7 July 2026
The Albanese Labor Government has made new appointments to the Screen Australia board.
Dr Tania Chamber...
07/07/2026
The right team. The right time.' How The Killings at Parrish Station stuck t...
07/07/2026
Berklee College of Music Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's...
07/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists train the immune system to make antibodies against numerous HIV strains Preclinical findings mark progress toward a long-sought vacc...
06/07/2026
Long-developed relationships and informal access, three production models, and c...
06/07/2026
The deal follows Lumine's recent acquisition of Synamedia's video-networ...
06/07/2026
This former SportsCenter producer is shaping local-team studio coverage to surro...
06/07/2026
IMS Productions and FOX Sports deployed more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds,...
06/07/2026
Lumine Group Inc. has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Video Network Business from Synamedia. The business will operate as a standalone compan...
06/07/2026
NASCAR has announced a content and commercial partnership with Motorsport Network, a motorsports and automotive media platform, to distribute NASCAR original co...
06/07/2026
Versant Media Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Full Swing, a sports technology company, from Bruin Capital and a group of minority investor...
06/07/2026
DAZN has announced global broadcast rights to 3ICE, a professional hockey format featuring three skaters and a goalkeeper per side, with no power plays or offsi...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
06/07/2026
Digital Domain Appoints Industry Veteran Patrick Davenport as Executive Vice Pre...
06/07/2026
Gravity Media USA appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development
Brie Clayton July 6, 2026
0 Comments
The strategic new appointment supports...
06/07/2026
Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage in Resolve
Michael Cioni July 6, 2026
0 Comments
This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup your...
06/07/2026
Automatic Caption Translation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Colin Smith July 6, 2026
0 Comments
Here I showcase the innovative automatic caption translation f...
06/07/2026
Flavor's First Ever Managing Director Neal Cohen Retires; Longstanding Execu...
06/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Medtech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might think...
06/07/2026
Zhongyi Optics unveils the Dreamy Zone T1 FF Cine Lens Series on Indiegogo with ...
06/07/2026
Open source AI has shown how quickly developers can innovate when models, data a...
06/07/2026
Techtel debuts insyght: making ST 2110 media discovery easy
intellisphereinsyght2026
6 July Written By Suzanne Costello
Sydney, Australia - 06 July 2026 T...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in ...
06/07/2026
Every year, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) reveals where thousands of AI researchers have decided to put their work.
This year's ...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
We've gone to another level of integrating the graphics into the set architecture' - Zac Fields, SVP, Graphic Technology and Integration, FOX Sports...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Angelique Kidjo: the diva from Benin could win a record sixth Grammy AwardKidjo's fame continues to grow globally, particularly during Grammy season, she's been nominated for the Grammy Awards in the US 14 times 
