The Queen Of Afro-funk Angelique Kidjo Wants To Be A 'Dealer Of Light'

Angélique Kidjo is a legend. The very rightly crowned queen of afro-funk and jazz is back with her Remain In Light album and tour, a reimagining of the 1980 Talking Heads album. Although the original is nearly 40 years old, Kidjo finds real relevance (as well as optimism) for current listeners.

“For me, every album has been to tell a story, every album has colours to it,” Kidjo explains. “The colour and cover of this album’s kind of interesting. When we started recording it I was saying, ‘I have this kind of no colour and colour at the same time. It needs to be something that goes from the darkness to the light, but that colour doesn’t exist.’ And we were talking and I saw a painting of Kerry James Marshall at an exhibition that he had, and I’m like, ‘I need to talk to this person!’ So a friend of mine sent me to his gallery and his people, and then in January 2018 my phone rang and he says, 'This is Kerry James Marshall… I heard about your project, and I’m really curious to see what you want to do with it.'"

After that call, Kidjo flew to Chicago from Paris, and when a “two-minute conversation went on for five hours” the two finally struck on an amazing effect, what the artist called “black light”. “As he said, ‘In the darkness, particularly in this moment that we’re living in, everybody’s going through anxiety, so you’re going to be the dealer of light, so that’s how we’re going to do it.’”

Certainly there is a pessimistic undertone to many of the songs in the album, but Kidjo is determined to find their other side. For example, she uses The Great Curve as a reference to the current women’s movement, but also “a reminder that mother nature is feminine and there is no human being who comes to this planet without coming through a woman... The earth decides, it doesn’t mind if you’re black or white, rich or poor."

A proud African woman and ambassador, Kidjo’s heritage, both personal and national, regularly informs her. With the childhood nickname 'When-what-how' (referring to her love of asking questions), she was taught to be curious and value conversation – something that still drives her today. “I grew up in a society where my ancestors, it was an oral tradition and it still is an oral tradition. That's why we value so much our elderly people, they have the memories that can tell us how to go from here to go to the next step. So then in that surrounding, in a household where my dad used to say, ‘If you don’t speak up how do you want me to know what you’re thinking, how can I help you?’, he also said that our brain was our ultimate weapon, and we can use it wisely, or we can decide to waste it – it’s up to us.”

"I cannot be negative because I wasn’t born in a culture of negativity.”

The problem with asking questions, particularly with today’s climate, is that sometimes the answers can be disappointing (or worse, nonsense!). Is Kidjo ever tempted to just to turn it all off and ignore what’s going on? “Well I can’t let go,” she says. “There’s only one human family and within that human family I’ve met absolutely incredible human beings. I’ve been in the position that I’ve met people who have nothing, but they stand tall and proud... And then I have met rich people who are miserable... So who am I to question, I cannot be negative because I wasn’t born in a culture of negativity.” 

In addition to her father’s encouragement of questions, Kidjo’s mother also influenced her love of artistic expression. “I started singing with my mum when I was six years old,” she says of her first teacher, also the founder of a large West African theatre company at a time when a woman’s place was thought to only be in the home. “Whenever someone comes to see my mum she says [about me], ‘I taught her everything,’” she laughs. “She turned 92 last year, and she’s still moving!”