Angélique Kidjo

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximumfun.org and is distributed by NPR.

Jesse Thorn (0:21)

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn. These days, we assume that music will cross borders. K-pop is everywhere. Reggaeton is all over the radio. But 35 years ago, things were very different. Back then, international music was maybe one bin at the record shop. And the closest you'd get to hearing it on the radio, besides, I guess, Bob Marley, is maybe Graceland?

So bear that context in mind when I play you this next song, Way Way.

That's my guest, Angélique Kidjo. It's from La Gozo, her Breakthrough 1991 record. At the time, there was nothing on the radio like this. And I mean, you're listening to it, it goes.

In a career that spanned three decades, Kidjo has through her music personified what it means to be a citizen of the world. There's Benin, the country where she was born and raised, and France, where she first started working as a musician, and these days, New York City, where she hangs her hat. All that is part of what makes her such an authentic world music superstar. Obviously, she is a musical genius. Everyone agrees, but she is also a true ambassador, one of the most brilliant and delightful human beings that there is on earth. I mean, seriously, as soon as she walked out of the elevator in our office, she was greeting people and dancing and singing, giving out hugs. It was such a joy to meet her. Earlier this year, Kidjo released Hope. That's two exclamation points at the end. It features guest appearances from Pharrell Williams, Quavo, Nile Rodgers and others. Let's hear a bit from that record. This one features the Nigerian superstar, Ira Star. It's called, I Can, Are You Coming Back?

Well, welcome to Bullseye, it's so nice to have you on the show.

Angélique Kidjo (3:17)

I'm so happy to be here. Everything is so smooth and soothing here. I like it.

Jesse Thorn (3:23)

I'm happy to hear it. We'll see if we can ruin it all in this interview.

Angélique Kidjo (3:26)

Don't.

Jesse Thorn (3:29)

Your new record is called Hope. Do you think you're a hopeful person?

Angélique Kidjo (3:32)

I've always been. My mom is a hopeful person. I grew up in a house where hope was in abundance.

Because I think my mom raised 10 kids, seven boys and three girls. You don't have hope. God help you.

Jesse Thorn (3:46)

And she was working too, right?

Angélique Kidjo (3:47)

Yeah, she had the theater and she had a business of fabric also.

And she just like, I can't even describe my mom's energy for you. People say you have a lot of energy. I say, because you never have the chance to meet my mother. I'm nothing next to my mom's energy.

Jesse Thorn (4:08)

Really?

Angélique Kidjo (4:08)

Oh yeah. She wakes up in the morning, whew, gone.

Jesse Thorn (4:13)

Because you walked in the door and lit up the room, so.

Angélique Kidjo (4:19)

Well, my mom is like that, just like that. You can ask my husband, he always tries to say to my mom, Yvonne, stop dancing, because she has both of her knees replaced, right? And the doctor said, you cannot move without your cane and stop dancing too much. For as a party, my mom not dancing, I don't think it's gonna happen on planet Earth. She's dancing all night. And at one point, she looked at me and said, can you tell your husband to leave me alone? You are his wife, I'm not, so I can dance as much as I want.

That's my mother for you, right?

You can't stop her.

Jesse Thorn (4:59)

I was reading you describing your childhood, and one of the things that really struck me was, you said in your family, you would sing along to a song if you didn't know the lyrics.

Angélique Kidjo (5:10)

Yeah, I do that all the time. I make up my own words and I'm not quiet doing it.

It's painful to hear. I've been belting it out like I know what I'm doing. I was so assertive. That's the way it's supposed to sound. That's the language. And everybody's looking at me like, my mom, every time I come out and say, can I sing? She will run, grab the cotton buds and put it in her ears. She says, now you can go.

You can sing now.

Jesse Thorn (5:39)

When you were a kid in Benin, what music did you hear that you wouldn't have heard if you had grown up here in Los Angeles or grown up in Paris where you lived later?