Angelique Kidjo & Friends Airs Tonight on PBS

Wednesday June 15, 2011

from The Boston Globe

A Commanding Kidjo Shows Us How To Duet
By James Reed

Within the first few minutes of her new concert film, Angélique Kidjo relays a list of what she wants her music to impart: empowerment, joy, strength, and love. It’s an earnest enough statement until you soon realize it’s also a blueprint for “Angélique Kidjo and Friends: Spirit Rising.’’

Filmed at WGBH’s Brighton studios in March and debuting on Channel 2 tonight at 9, the special captures the African singer in fierce form. She hoots. She hollers. She dances like her feet are possessed. And Kidjo seems genuinely humbled by the artists who join her, giving each an outsize introduction usually reserved for Mick Jagger.

Kidjo, whose fame has rippled well beyond her native Benin, has never confined her music to one continent or even a single genre, a fact that’s reflected in the diversity of her guests. From Josh Groban*’s pop-opera melodrama to the gut-busting force of jazz singer *Dianne Reeves to the elegance of *Branford Marsalis*’s saxophone playing, Kidjo keeps good company.

In the film’s most inspired collaboration, we learn that Kidjo’s appeal cuts across not only genre, but also generations. In introducing Ezra Koenig, the frontman for Afropop-flavored indie-rock band Vampire Weekend, she calls him a new member of her American musical family. They perform one of Vampire Weekend’s ballads, “I Think Ur a Contra,’’ and Kidjo’s subtle interpretation reveals new meaning as Koenig looks on in awe.

Read the full article here

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