African Nights International Festival | Angélique Kidjo: the unifying diva

Angélique Kidjo has sung with everyone from Tina Turner to Youssou N’Dour. The most famous African singer on the planet returns to Montreal to launch the Festival international Nuits d’Afrique.

It’s sunny in Brooklyn, so Angélique Kidjo is in good spirits on this June morning. She settled down in front of her computer humming “Tutti frutti, aw rooty”, the famous refrain of Little Richard. “I am carried away by his energy”, she says, with a smile that will never leave her for long during the interview carried out by videoconference.

Spruce, authentic, generous, Angélique Kidjo has always distinguished herself by her energy, too. We can easily guess that this is the kind of person who does not stay in place. “I could spend my life on tour and that would suit me very well,” confirms the Beninese diva, who will offer the opening concert of the International Festival Nuits d’Afrique on Wednesday, at the MTelus.

“Every time I come [à Montréal], I’m having fun, I’m eating well and I’m in good hands. I feel at home, what, she says. And Nuits d’Afrique is, I think, a reminder that all music comes from Africa. We have to realize that. I listen to Little Richard and it’s all there: he comes from the blues and the blues comes from Africa. »

Bringing to light the sprawling influence of African rhythms and music has been Angélique Kidjo’s mission for many years. A quest which is embodied in particular by his trilogy composed of the albums Oremia, Black Ivory Soul And Ohaya!, where she mixed her African roots respectively with black American music, that of Brazil and the Caribbean.

His curiosity is clearly displayed throughout his discography. She sang with dozens of other artists, including Nigerian star Yemi Alade (also at Nuits d’Afrique, July 19), Tina Turner and Frenchman Christophe Maé, covered as much Hendrix as the Talking Heads, reinvented the standard Summertime and even the Bolero by Ravel. Angélique Kidjo does not snub anything or anyone.

“I grew up surrounded by music from all over the world. So when I started doing it, I asked myself how I could give back a little of what I had received and that I had nourished my art”, she says, to explain the constancy of the collaborations throughout. of her career.

From Paris to Brooklyn

Angélique Kidjo, who has just received the Polar prize for all of her work and her social commitment (she notably supports education and entrepreneurship programs for women), had already made a name for herself in Benin when she flew to France in the early 1980s. She knew she would have to start over at the bottom, but was surprised by the gap between the two countries.

Even if she found herself in Paris at the same time as people like Salif Keita or Manu Dibango, at a time when the French capital was becoming the epicenter of what was then called “world music”, the ears of the Beninese singer turned instead to French-speaking culture. “I discovered Jacques Higelin, Bashung, Plamondon, Maxime Le Forestier, she lists. I was kind of a music junkie. I listened to everything I didn’t know. »

This period nourished her enormously. “It also made me realize that music is the only art form that can speak to people from all walks of life and can address all subjects, all themes, without violence,” he adds. -She.

Angélique Kidjo has spent part of her life in Brooklyn, in the New York metropolitan area, for many years. What does the United States bring him? A freedom that she did not spontaneously feel in France. “I don’t have a colonial history with the United States. I immediately felt that I was no longer the African on duty, she explains. The dynamic was immediately completely different, because I no longer had to justify anything in relation to my identity.

“I settled here because I no longer had to justify my musical desires, because I could work with directors from various backgrounds who were curious to understand my approach,” she explains. And you can hear it: since she lives in Brooklyn, her music, which already ignored borders, embraces the planet with even more generosity. With the same contagious energy that she appreciates in Little Richard.

At the MTelus, July 12, at 8:30 p.m.

More must-see indoor concerts

Boulila & Friends

Boulila & Friends plays an interesting mix of Gnawa music and jazz. The impetus is given by the percussion (including the karkabous, Moroccan castanets) and the vibrations of the guembri, a kind of bass played by the Berbers and the Tuaregs. Boulila won the Syli d’or in 2021.

Club Ballatou, July 12, at 8:30 p.m.

Eliasse

There is rarely music from the Comoros, an archipelago located between Madagascar and northern Mozambique, at Nuits d’Afrique. The Eliasse trio plays “zangoma” rock, which, to Western ears, sounds like bluesy rock carried by rhythms that often have nothing binary about them.

Club Ballatou, July 13, at 8:30 p.m.

Bianca Rocha

Inspired by the bossa-nova and samba of her native Brazil, Bianca Rocha creates a Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) with jazzy accents. Her delicate singing, in Portuguese and sometimes in French, floats on soft but dancing guitars and inventive basses. Bianca Rocha will receive a special guest, Flavia Nascimento, who lives in Quebec.

Club Ballatou, July 14, 8:30 p.m.

Sophie Lukacs

Bamako, the first album by the Canadian-Hungarian Sophie Lukacs, is a curious mix: the singing is folk, but instead of the guitar, it is above all the kora, an instrument that she notably studied with Toumani Diabaté, that we hears. An intriguing marriage of traditions.

Club Ballatou, July 19, at 8:30 p.m.