LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — According to its website Festival International de Louisiane “was conceived as a multi-faceted cultural event of international scope and significance,” featuring music and art from around the French-speaking world. No artist better hits that target than Angélique Kidjo.
Kidjo brings together the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America. She is fluent in five languages, Fon, French, Yorùbá, Gen (Mina) and English, and sings in all of them.
Kidjo is a 5-time Grammy winner and 12-time nominee. Her latest win, the 2022 Grammy award for Best Global Music Album for “Mother Nature,” made Kidjo the most awarded African musician of all time.
The BBC has included her in its list of the continent of Africa’s 50 most iconic figures, and in 2011 The Guardian listed her as one of their Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World.
Kidjo was born into a family of performing artists. Her father was a musician, and her mother worked as a choreographer and theater director in Benin, in West Africa.
Kidjo’s albums are exercises in musical fusion, melding an array of genres, including jazz, hip-hop, rumba, samba, salsa, funk, gospel and various Beninese traditions.
Her 2004 album “Oyaya!” included a collaboration with Dave Matthews, and her 2007 effort “Djin Djin” featured luminaries from the international music scene including Peter Gabriel, Josh Groban, Carlos Santana and others.
Kidjo will perform at the Festival on the Scene LUS Internationale stage at 8:45 p.m. on Friday, April 28.
