Music response

Benin- Angélique Kidjo 3. Afirika 

Angélique Kidjo is a singer and song writer from Benin Africa. However, she moved to Paris in the early 80s. Her soulful music contains other elements such as jazz, reggae, salsa and gospel. Kidjo's music is inspired from artist such as Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin. On her album Oremi, she featured her version of Hendrix's song “Voodoo Child(Slight Return).” Over the years, Angélique has collaborated with many artist and has won several awards. Among the many awards she has won includes three Grammy Awards, the most recent was in 2015 for Best Contemporary World Music Album.  Although she has collaborated with many artist and took inspiration from modern artist, she likes to keep her music as traditional as possible. Her music is about African traditions, transformations and female unity. The music is all written in African languages. Actually, Angélique can not read music just like traditional artist. Everything is done by ear. Her main band includes two guitar players named Lionel Loueke and Dominic James. She has also collaborated to add more sounds to her music like a piano, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, her mother's voice, Gangbe Brass Band, and other African women. The African women play the biggest role in Angélique's music. She wants to be able to reach out to them in different ways and keep her music raw. A highlight in her career, besides winning the Grammy Awards, was performing at the Kickoff Concert for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. She sang three songs, “Afirika”, “Malaika”, and “Move on Up” with John Legend. The song “Afirika” used the traditional drums and had a complex rhythm. She had many women singing along in the background and had nontraditional instruments such as the saxophone and brass instruments. I feel like the only instruments I heard most of the time while she was singing was the wind and brass instruments, but I got the traditional sound of the drums during the instrumental breaks. I liked the way Angélique was able to combine the traditional sounds with a more modern feel. I enjoyed listening to her songs and hope everyone else does too!

References

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/ang%C3%A9lique-kidjo-mn0000040879/biography (Links to an external site.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/arts/music/angelique-kidjo-has-never-left-africa-behind.html?_r=0 (Links to an external site.)