REVIEW Angélique Kidjo at London's Barbican

Monday May 31, 2010

From The Guardian
by John L Walters

Next month, the Benin-born Angélique Kidjo will share a bill with Black Eyed Peas, Tinariwen and others at the World Cup’s opening concert in South Africa. This London performance showcased her passionate performing style, razor-sharp band and take-no-prisoners approach to audience participation, yet it lacked the light and shade of her recordings.

She has better material than most pop stars. Songs such as Afirika, Tumba and Arouna have catchy hooks and delicious melodies that can lodge in your head for days. Most of tonight’s performance was based around Oyo, her most recent album, whose eclectic selection of songs includes the Bollywood theme Dil Main Chuppa Ke Pyar Ka and Sidney Bechet’s Petite Fleur, a favourite of her late father.

Kidjo began the evening with a moving, unaccompanied version of Atcha Houn, the first song she sang in public, as a six-year-old; from there, it built slowly, with a handful of gentle numbers, including the gorgeous Afia, co-written with the Brazilian guitar maverick Vinicius Cantuária.

In a short talk before Kelele, Kidjo explained that she takes music from many parts of Africa – Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Senegal – and puts them in her shaker to make a musical “smoothie”. Continuing the metaphor, she later threw James Brown – whose funky shrieks, she said, introduced her to the English language – and Curtis Mayfield into the blender.

Towards the gig’s end, many musical nuances got lost in her quest to cram a stadium-sized performance into the concert hall, as she focused on getting the audience to jump and dance at her bidding. But they loved it, and the Barbican stage soon filled with gleefully twisting dancers.

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Baby, I Love You feat. Dianne Reeves	3:10	Angélique Kidjo
Zelie	2:04	Angélique Kidjo
Move On Up feat. John Legend	3:46	Angélique Kidjo
Ae Ae	3:31	Angélique Kidjo

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Move On Up
Afirika (2010 FIFA World Cup™ Kick-off Concert)

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