NH: Completely, I fondness that you can repeal also of nation beliefs when animism itself, or Voodoo, is plainly really a belief of everything having a handle and everything having a heart and everything having a opening, and cargo the compassionate part of the Catholic religion and putting it together. That makes feeling to me. Good, why don't we cling to some mega music, and then we'll come back and native tongue some mega in a petite after. What's the next cork you're gonna place for us?
AK: The next regulate I wanna sing is gonna be an a capella regulate a musician from Togo next door to Benin used to sing. It's called "Blewu," and that musician was one of my major influences, too, in Africa. She died in a car crack in 1973, and it was a loss for us in West Africa when she was very big. And "Blewu" means, it's a thanking regulate that we used to sing some time ago all associated for a drum or for a implementation, and we ask the Almighty to send all back home multinational, with no harm to any person. So, for the consultation outdoor, this is my thanking for them serving down or violent their car listening, this regulate is besotted to all.
NH: On Originate Becomes Unchained at KCRW, it's Angelique Kidjo.
AK: (sings "Blewu")
NH: Angelique Kidjo remaining on Originate Becomes Unchained. That was analytical a capella cork. Thank you so a good deal.
AK: Happiness.
NH: OK, so we're tongue about the fact, I'm mark of backtracking now, how you started, you came to Paris, your natural ability really began hand over, at least the Western part of your natural ability. You're now living in New York Municipal. How do you find New York City? How hunger cling to you been there?
AK: A year. Something like a year, yeah.
NH: And the community, it's a cute fresh place from Paris.
AK: Oh, it is fresh from Paris, and it's fresh from Africa while I come from. What on earth I fondness about New York is the energy in that municipal. I mean, it's moving non-stop. And some time ago you are in New York, you cling to an offer of how the world can flavor fondness. You cling to every gentle of fresh participant, fresh parts of the world hand over. You cling to Asia, you cling to Latin America, you cling to Africa, you cling to North America, you cling to Europe, you cling to all living in New York Municipal. And I fondness the energy, and I fondness the way you work hand over. So you burial up in the morning, you wanna do no matter which, they can be ingeniously used, and collapse, cling to thump done, and I fondness that.
NH: It's utterly a municipal of masses, masses, masses fresh cultures. Los Angeles is, too, but I would lay a wager that New York is it would seem even mega slack.
AK: Investigate, and I fondness that. I'm a big cheese who likes to resist and mix thump and mix land. I fondness that.
NH: And you were saying that your next conclude is separation to be Brazil. You essential to remaining in Brazil at some point?
AK: Yeah, I'm separation to go to Salvador Bahia to start with to make an announcement when the Salvadorian land cling to a very stop history with my village. The creative ?migr that now in Benin was a Brazilian white man called Francisco de Souza. He now and he was very stop friends of the king. And he was marital to fresh women hand over, he had a lot of kids, and you cling to a oversize, big community of infected kids amid Brazilian white land and Beninese women. And hand over is an yarn about this guy that now that explains out-and-out how thump succession fondness this today, how slavery was achievable, and how the contact are cool in Africa. As I was saying or else, he was a friend of the king. And they had a dispute, I lay a wager he betrayed the king. and some time ago you cheat a king, they finish you.
NH: Not a good guy to cheat.
AK: No.
NH: Not the king.
AK: So in the Voodoo religion, hand over are two colors that you can't place vis-?-vis with: red, which is the color of the blood that acquaintances animals and material beings together, and the color white, which is the color that we winding sheet the god and goddesses in, meaning, it is the light, it has not a hint to do with the dark. So when he was white, they couldn't finish him. So the king understood, "Why don't you dye him with indigo?" So they painted that guy with mauve and they connected him up outdoor in the patch, but he was looking at them, his eyes were blue. They were fondness, "This is weird; he's not a black man, we can't finish him. Let us let him go." So they let him go, and he inspired from the Stately of Abomey to my village. So, the land that come from Benin and go to Salvador Bahia, they came back, and they swayed the traditional music of my village. Give are a lot of thump that sober fondness samba and fondness the drum of the olodoum. And they came back, too, and built up a museum in my village. So some time ago you go to my village and you disturb my village, you cling to two museum. You cling to the museum of Benin, with the beginning of the migration and the slavery -- the land that came back, the Cubans came back, the Brazilian land came back, the Haitian land came back, to retain the music itself and the way of life. And you cling to the museum of the Salvadorian land that came back to Benin and built up a museum. So, land relate me that separation to Salvador Bahia is cube fondness my village, so I wanna go hand over.
NH: So you wanna go observer it out.
AK: Oh, yeah.
NH: Do you get back to Benin, to your own village very often? Do you return?
AK: Oh, yeah, I try subsequent to a year.
NH: To go home, you cool cling to family?
AK: I cling to my dad, my mom, my residential home, my uncles, my aunts, and cousins.
NH: So it's still good to go back and make that impact.
AK: I want to go.Angelique Kidjo in implementation in Benin
