Angélique Kidjo was stoned when she was in school and she went home crying her grandmother was with her mom when she arrived and she hold her after Kidjo explain to her and she replies "Loot at me, talk to me , what do you care about what people think about you? You have to learn one thing in live you cannot love everybody and appropriate everybody and it goes both way if you don't learn that now you gonna always be a fool of somebody live your live to the full as long as you don't hurt anybody and you're happy doing what you do let them talk" This change her life for good. Enjoy the rest of her wonderful story and be inspire....
Angélique Kpasseloko Hinto Hounsinou Kandjo Manta Zogbin
Kidjo, known as Angélique Kidjo (born July 14, 1960), is a
Beninese-born American Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and
activist, noted for her diverse musical influences and creative music videos. Time magazine
has called her "Africa's premier diva". The BBC has included Kidjo in its list
of the African continent's 50 most iconic figures. The Guardian has
listed her as one of its Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World and Kidjo is the first woman to be
listed among "The 40 Most Powerful Celebrities In Africa" by Forbes magazine. The Daily Telegraph in
London described her as "The undisputed queen of African music"
during the 2012 Olympic Games River of Music Festival In March 2013, NPR,
National Public Radio in America, called her "Africa's greatest living
diva". Kidjo is listed among
the "2014 Most Influential Africans" by New African magazine
and Jeune Afrique.[10][11] Forbes
Afrique put Angelique on the cover of their "100 most influential
women" issue in 2015.[12] On
June 6, 2013, Kidjo was elected vice-president of the Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d´Auteurs et Compositeurs
(CISAC). She now resides in New York City,[13] where
she is an occasional contributor to the New
York Times.[14][15][16] Angelique
has received Honorary Doctorates from Yale University, Berklee College of Music and Middlebury College.[17][18][19]
Her musical influences include the Afropop, Caribbean zouk, Congolese rumba, jazz, gospel, and Latin styles; as well as her childhood idols Bella Bellow, James Brown, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Miriam Makeba andCarlos Santana. She has recorded George Gershwin's "Summertime", Ravel's Boléro, Jimi
Hendrix's "Voodoo Child"
and the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter", and has collaborated with Dave Matthews and
the Dave Matthews Band,Kelly Price, Alicia Keys, Branford Marsalis, Ziggy Marley, Philip Glass, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Carlos Santana, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Josh Groban, Dr John, the Kronos Quartet and Cassandra Wilson. Kidjo's hit songs include "Agolo",
"We We", "Adouma", "Wombo Lombo",
"Afirika", "Batonga", and her version of "Malaika". Her album Logozo is ranked number 37 in the
Greatest Dance Albums of All Time list compiled by the Thump web site.[20]
Kidjo is fluent in Fon, French, Yorùbá and English, and sings in all four languages; she also has her own personal language, which
includes words that serve as song titles such as "Batonga".
"Malaika" is a song sung in the Swahililanguage. Kidjo often utilizes Benin's traditional Zilin vocal technique and jazz vocalese.
Recently, Angelique added 'Actor' to
her long list of accolades as she featured in 2015 Nollywood movie, 'The CEO.'
Angelique is the recipient of the 2015
Crystal Award given by the World Economic Forum of Davos in Switzerland[21]
Kidjo was born in Cotonou, Benin. Her father is from the Fon
people of Ouidah and
her mother from the Yoruba
people.
She grew up listening to Beninese traditional music, Fela
Kuti, Miriam Makeba, Hugh
Masekela, James
Brown, Manu Dibango, Otis
Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie
Wonder, Osibisa, and Santana. By the time she was six, Kidjo was performing
with her mother's theatre troupe,[22] giving her an early appreciation for
traditional music and dance. She started singing in her school band, Les
Sphinx, and found success as a teenager with her adaptation of Miriam Makeba's
"Les Trois Z", which played on national radio. She recorded the album Pretty with
the Cameroonian producer Ekambi Brilliant and her brother Oscar. It featured
the songs "Ninive", "Gbe Agossi" and a tribute to the
singer Bella Bellow, one of her role models. The success of the album allowed
her to tour all over West Africa. Continuing political conflicts in Benin
prevented her from being an independent artist in her own country and led her
to relocate to Paris in
1983.
ACTIVISM
Angélique
Kidjo found The
Batonga Foundation a non-profit
organization that aims to provide African girls
a secondary school and higher education. It was founded in 2007 and is now working in five
African nations: Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali, and Sierra Leone.
The foundation is run by a board of directors, the
members of which are Angélique Kidjo, her husband Jean Hebrail, Mary Louise
Cohen and John R. Phillips.[3] The organization attempts to achieve
its goals through granting scholarships to girls, founding schools, and
improving teaching standards. The foundation also provides schools with
supplies.[4] Batonga's current countries of focus
are Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali and Sierra Leone.
Kidjo has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2002. With UNICEF, she has
travelled to many countries in Africa. Reports on her visits can be found on
the UNICEF site: Benin, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Syria, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, South Africa and
Haiti.
Along with Mary Louise Cohen[35] and John R. Phillips,[36] Kidjo
founded The Batonga Foundation,
which gives girls a secondary school and higher education so that they can take
the lead in changing Africa. The foundation is doing this by granting
scholarships, building secondary schools, increasing enrollment, improving
teaching standards, providing school supplies, supporting mentor programs,
exploring alternative education models and advocating for community awareness
of the value of education for girls.
She campaigned for Oxfam at the 2005 Hong Kong WTO meeting, for their Fair Trade Campaign
and travelled with them in North Kenya and at the border of Darfurand Chad with a group of women leaders in 2007
and participated in the video for the In My Name Campaign
with will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas.
She hosted the Mo Ibrahim Foundation's
Prize for Achievement in African Leadership in Alexandria, Egypt,
on November 26, 2007, and on November 15, 2008, inDar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on November 14, 2009, and in Mauritius on
November 20, 2010. She hosted the "Africa Celebrates Democracy
Concert" organized by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in Tunis on November 11, 2011, and sang at the
Award Ceremony on November 12, 2011, also in Dakar on November 10, 2012, Addis Ababa in
November 2013 and Accra in November 2015.
Since March 2009, Kidjo has been
campaigning for "Africa for women's rights". This campaign was
launched by The International
Federation of Human Rights(FIDH).
On September 28, 2009, UNICEF and
Pampers launched a campaign to eradicate Tetanus "Give The Gift Of Life" and asked Kidjo to produce the
song "You Can Count On Me" to support the campaign. Each download of
the song donates a vaccine to a mother or a mother-to-be.
With Jessica Biel and Peter Wentz, Angélique Kidjo was a LiveEarth Ambassador
for the 2010 Run For Water events.
Kidjo has recorded a video based on her
song "Agolo" and on the images of Yann Arthus-Bertrand for the United Nations SEAL THE DEAL Campaign
to prepare for the Copenhagen Climate Change summit.
The Commission of the African Union (AU)
announced on July 16, 2010, the appointment of Angélique Kidjo as one of 14
Peace Ambassadors to support the implementation of the 2010 Year of Peace and
Security programme.
She appears in the Sudan365: Keep the Promise video
to support the peace process in Darfur.
In June 2010, she contributed the song
"Leila" to the Enough Project and Downtown Records' Raise Hope for Congo compilation.
Proceeds from the compilation fund efforts to make the protection and
empowerment of Congo’s women a priority, as well as inspire individuals around
the world to raise their voice for peace in Congo.
In 2011, Kidjo collaborated with Forró in the
Dark and Brazilian Girls on
the track "Aquele Abraço" for the Red Hot Organization's most recent charitable album Red Hot + Rio 2. The
album is a follow-up to the 1996 Red Hot + Rio. Proceeds from the sales will be donated to
raise awareness and money to fight AIDS/HIV and
related health and social issues. Kidjo recorded a version of Fela Kuti's "Lady" with Questlove and Tune-Yards for
the Red Hot Organization in 2012.
In September 2012, she was featured in
a campaign called "30 Songs/30 Days" to support Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,
a multi-platform media project inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s
book.[37]
On February 18, 2013, at the UNESCO headquarters
in Paris, Kidjo was the host of a night of celebration for the cultural
heritage of Mali. The event included performances by many Malian artists. [38]
On May 22, 2014, Kidjo met with First
lady Michelle Obama to
discuss international girls' education, in the Eisenhower Executive Office
Building of the White House.[39]
On September 21, 2014, Kidjo was one of
the endorsees of the People's Climate March.[40] She
joined the march in New York, along with Mary Robinson, and was interviewed by Amy Goodman for Democracy Now.[41]
November 2014 saw Kidjo collaborating
with many other artists in Band Aid 30, the 30th-anniversary version of the 1980s supergroup.
In 2015 she signed an open letter which
the ONE Campaign had
been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma,
urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany
and the AU in South Africa respectively, which will start to set the priorities
in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will
establish new development goals for the generation.[42]
Angelique is a contributor to the Art
Of Saving A Life Campaign initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[43]
On Sept 25th, 2015, she sung Afirika at
the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in support of the launch
of the Global Goals for
Sustainable Development along with Shakira after a
speech by Pope Francis and
before Malala.
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