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Singer Angelique Kidjo Vocalizes On Carnegie Hall, The Power Of Giving
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Friday November 05, 2010
Singer Angelique Kidjo Vocalizes On Carnegie Hall, The Power Of Giving
from NY1
by Stephanie Simon
Before her big concert at Carnegie Hall next Thursday night, Angelique Kidjo sits down with NY1’s Arts reporter Stephanie Simon in Harlem to talk about her love of music, New York City and giving back to the global community.
Grammy-winning vocalist Angelique Kidjo lives in Brooklyn, but is a world music superstar across the globe, especially in Europe and her native Africa. When she decided to leave Europe for America, there was not a lot of encouragement.
“People in Europe were telling me, ‘Well, what are you going to do in America? American people don’t know anything about African music.’ I said, ‘You know what? Hey, I’m going anyway. I’m going to show them that the music that they have been playing and listening to comes from Africa anyway,’” says Kidjo.
She definitely moves to the beat of her own drum. Speaking with NY1 in Harlem about her upcoming concert at Carnegie Hall, Kidjo says he theme will be “the drum.”
“That music is just such an important thing, that drum in itself plays a huge role in the language we speak, because there’s a rhythm to every language,” says Kidjo. “And the theme of it is to bring everybody around the drums to tell a story.”
Kidjo has lots of stories to tell. She grew up poor, one of ten children in Benin in West Africa. Since then, she has risen to the top of the world music scene and collaborated with the likes of Carlos Santana, Peter Gabriel and Bono.
She performed at the 2010 World Cup Soccer in South Africa with John Legend.
“It was freezing, more than outside today, and I was like, ‘How in the world I’m going to go onstage?’ So I was like, ‘You know what? The music’s going to keep me warm,’” says Kidjo. “And when we hit that stage, the public kept us warm, because everybody was just like, ‘Whaaaa!’”
Kidjo says moving to New York in the 1990s not only raised her profile here in the United States but also increased her appreciation of New York and her fellow New Yorkers.
“People give here, not only money to causes. They give their hearts, they give their smiles,” she says.
Kidjo also gives back, and travels the world as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
“It’s because when I was growing up as a child, most of my vaccination was done through UNICEF, because I came from a poor family,” says Kidjo.
She also runs her own organization, Batonga, which helps women.
“When you educate a woman or a girl, you educate a family, a community and the whole nation,” says Kidjo.
The talented world musician definitely knows how to get nations to move to her beat. For more on her upcoming concert, visit www.kidjo.com.
Read the full article here
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