Crossover Media

On April 19, Angélique Kidjo will release Celia (Verve/Universal Music France), an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20thcentury. On Celia, Angélique explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz and reimagines selections from Cruz's extraordinary career in surprising new ways, infused with an explosion of sounds and rhythms from Cuba, Africa, the Middle East, America and beyond. The album includes performances by Tony Allen (Fela Kuti) on drums, Meshell Ndegeocello on bass, and British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchins plus his band Sons of Kemet.

Grammy Winner Angelique Kidjo releases 'Choose Love' remix / NYSMusic

Posted At: May 2, 2022 12:00 AM

NYSMusic - Paolo Confino writes…..Grammy winner Angélique Kidjo released a remix and music video of her song “Choose Love”. The “Choose Love” remix comes on the back of her Grammy Award win for Best Global Music Album for her album Mother Nature in April.

Mother Nature was released in June of 2021. The album, met with career-best raves, tackles major issues like the climate crisis and the struggle fo...
Angelique Kidjo Q&A's with The New Yorker

Posted At: February 16, 2022 12:00 AM

The New Yorker's Julian Lucas writes….By the time she was twenty-one, Angélique Kidjo was singing in more languages than most people will ever understand. The Beninese diva received her first standing ovation at six, for an impromptu rendition of a traditional Fon melody at her mother’s theatre. Before long, she’d moved on to French yé-yé, Cameroonian makossa, and covering Miriam Makeba with her high-school...
Angelique Kidjo performs song for imprisoned human rights activist; Nasrin Sotoudeh / NYSMusic

Posted At: January 24, 2021 12:00 AM

NYSMusic's Andie Chapman writes...... Four-time Grammy winner Angelique Kidjo has often advocated for human rights as she has been a UNICEF ambassador since 2002. Her music is imbued with compassion, and throughout the years she has contributed songs for important causes, such as her contribution song "Leila" for the Enough Project which raised awareness for women's rights in Raise Hope for Cong...
World Music becomes Global Music at the GRAMMYS, but has anything really changed? / The Boar

Posted At: December 5, 2020 12:00 AM

On 3 November 2020, news broke that the Grammys had chosen to rename the category of Best World Music Album to Best Global Music Album. In a statement released on the Grammys website on 9 November, the Recording Academy acknowledged the significance of the change in terminology. World Music is a contentious, colonial-rooted term in contrast to Global Music, which they describe as "more relevant, modern, ...
globalFEST partners with NPR music's 'tiny desk concerts' for 2021 edition / World Music Central

Posted At: November 23, 2020 12:00 AM

Influential world music showcase festival globalFEST will be held January 11 – 14, 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulty of international travel affected globalFEST's 2021 plans so the organizers came up with a partnership with National Public Radio Music's Tiny Desk concerts. The festival will present exclusive video performances by 16 artists through NPR Music's digital platforms, in...
Angelique Kidjo celebrates her 60th birthday and Benin independence at Carnegie Hall / WorldMusicCentral.org

Posted At: February 29, 2020 12:00 AM

Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo will complete her Carnegie Hall - Perspectives series on On Saturday, March 14, 2020 with Daughter of Independence, a concert commemorating both her 60th birthday and the anniversary of independence of her native Benin in addition to sixteen other West African nations. For this significant event, Kidjo is joined by Grammy Award-winning vocalist Brittany Howard (...
Angelique Kidjo on 'world music' / okayafrica. q&a

Posted At: February 21, 2020 12:00 AM

Last month, Angelique Kidjo won her fourth Grammy in the 'Best World Music' category. But it wasn't quite like every other year she had been nominated for the award. This time she shared the nomination with fellow African act Burna Boy, the first artist of the continent's current afropop scene to earn a nomination. While there's no question that Kidjo, who won for her 2019 album Celia...
Naomi Campbell calls for new GRAMMY afrobeats category / Keep the Faith

Posted At: February 2, 2020 12:00 AM

Supermodel Naomi Campbell has criticised the organisers of the Grammy Awards after Nigerian afrobeats star Burna Boy failed to win at the weekend. Burna Boy was nominated for Best World Music Album for his 2019 record African Giant but lost out to Beninese singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo. In a long post published on Instagram, Campbell congratulated Kidjo for her win and for "spreading light and...
Angelique Kidjo wins 2020 GRAMMY Award 'Best World Music Album' for 'Celia'

Posted At: January 27, 2020 12:00 AM

Angélique Kidjo's Celia (Verve/Universal Music France), is an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20thcentury. On Celia, Angélique explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz and reimagines selections from Cruz's extraordinary career in surprising new ways, infused with an explosion of...
Angelique Kidjo makes mbu: top 10 african artists of the decade

Posted At: January 3, 2020 12:00 AM

On the list made by Ghanaian website - Global Ranking is Angelique Kidjo. Kidjo latest release: Celia (Verve/Universal Music France), is an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20th century. On Celia, Angélique explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz and reimagines selections from Cruz's extra...
Angelique Kidjo hopes to close financing gap for African women / Keep the Faith

Posted At: December 30, 2019 12:00 AM

The insect-eaten money fluttered in pieces to the floor. For global music star Angelique Kidjo, that image of her grandmother having to use a closet as a bank is driving her desire to see African women leap the many obstacles to obtaining credit - and respect. The Benin-born singer, one of Africa's iconic artists and a collaborator with Philip Glass and others, is the voice of a new project aimed in part...
Angelique Kidjo - Celia makes npr's 'Alt.Latino: Year In Music'

Posted At: December 15, 2019 12:00 AM

On April 19 2019, Angélique Kidjo released Celia (Verve/Universal Music France), an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20thcentury. On Celia, Angélique explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz and reimagines selections from Cruz's extraordinary career in surprising new ways, infused wi...
Angelique Kidjo's 'Quimbara' makes npr's 'best cover songs of 2019'

Posted At: December 11, 2019 12:00 AM

The art of covering a song might have reached its pop-culture saturation point this year, thanks to an abundance of special programming (Triple J's Like A Version, BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge, Spotify Sessions, Amazon Prime exclusives), tribute albums and touring surprises. But what makes for a good cover? Sometimes it's an arrangement that's radical; at other points, it's the unexpecte...
Angelique Kidjo - Celia makes Transglobal 'Best of 2019'

Posted At: December 10, 2019 12:00 AM

Angélique Kidjo - Celia (Verve/Universal Music France), is an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20thcentury. On Celia, Angélique explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz and reimagines selections from Cruz's extraordinary career in surprising new ways, infused with an explosion of sou...
Angelique Kidjo - Celia selected for 2020 GRAMMY nomination

Posted At: November 20, 2019 12:00 AM

Angelique Kidjo - Celia selected for 2019 GRAMMY nomination for Best World Music Album On April 19, Angélique Kidjo will release Celia (Verve/Universal Music France), an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20thcentury. On Celia, Angélique explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz an...
Angelique Kidjo - Celia goes #1 on 'Transglobal World Music Chart' for August

Posted At: August 1, 2019 12:00 AM

Angélique Kidjo new Verve/Universal Music France release is an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20th century. On Celia, Kidjo explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz and reimagines selections from the singers extraordinary career in surprising new ways, infused with an explosion of sounds and ...
This week's KCRW: Rhythm Planet features; Angelique Kidjo - Celia

Posted At: June 12, 2019 12:00 AM

This week we check out a mix of new releases as well as evergreens that I've enjoyed over the years. We hear new music from Benin-born Angelique Kidjo with her tribute to Cuban superstar Celia Cruz. The West African nation of Benin, formerly Dahomey, produced many artists who were influenced by Cuban music, such as Gnonnas Pedro and Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. Kijdo channels Cruz in this long-awaited tribute...
The world according to Angelique Kidjo / The Root

Posted At: June 9, 2019 12:00 AM

She speaks and sings in five languages-no, six, if you count her recent foray into the native Spanish of the late Celia Cruz for her 17th album, released in April and simply titled Celia. Kidjo's Wikipedia page alone is a dizzying array of accolades and mentions of artists as diverse as Alicia Keys and David Byrne, whose 1980 Remain in Light album (with Talking Heads) Kidjo reimagined last year, bringing...
41st Playboy Jazz Festival kicks off with Angelique Kidjo, Terence Blanchard's E-Collective and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones / glideMAGAZINE

Posted At: June 4, 2019 12:00 AM

There's truly no better place to be on a sunny weekend in June than at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, joining in the festive celebration of the annual Playboy Jazz Festival. Marking its 41st year in 2019, this festival has lit up the Bowl for two full days and nights of the best jazz, blues and R&B on the planet since 1978, when Hugh Hefner was at the height of his game. Comedian Ge...
Angelique Kidjo - Celia makes Transglobal Top 25 for June

Posted At: June 3, 2019 12:00 AM

On April 19, Angélique Kidjo released Celia via Verve/Universal Music France, an album that honors Celia Cruz, widely known as "the Queen of Salsa" and the most popular Latin artist of the 20thcentury. On Celia, Angélique explores the African roots of the Cuban-born Cruz and reimagines selections from Cruz's extraordinary career in surprising new ways, infused with an explosion of...
Angelique Kidjo Q&A's with billboard on recording the songs of Celia Cruz

Posted At: May 22, 2019 12:00 AM

"As an African girl, when I first heard Celia Cruz sing 'Quimbara,' it just struck a chord," Angélique Kidjo tells Billboard of the salsa classic that Cruz recorded with Johnny Pacheco for the 1974 album Celia & Johnny. "Everybody knows that salsa is a very male-dominated business," Kidjo adds. "And in that business with a very male mentality, a female artist is hard to find. So here c...
Angelique Kidjo shares her views on CNN: African Voices / THISDAY Newspapers

Posted At: May 20, 2019 12:00 AM

Sensational singer, song writer and producer, Angelique Kidjo, will this week join two other firebrand female musicians on African Voices, a magazine programme of the Cable News Network (CNN) sponsored by telecommunications company, Globacom. Originally Angelique Kpasseloko Hinto Housinnou Kandjo Manta Zogbin Kidjo, the 58-year-old native of Benin Republic will be on the show with Sandra Suubi, an ...
Angelique Kidjo - Celia is a magnificent African reinvention of salsa / The Guardian

Posted At: April 20, 2019 12:00 AM

Angélique Kidjo is on a roll. For years, she has been an entertaining, reliable fixture on the world-music scene, a powerful singer famed for mixing African material, including songs by her heroine Miriam Makeba, with old favourites by anyone from Bob Marley to Sam Cooke. But it's her most recent albums that have demonstrated the scope of her ambition. First came her original reinterpretation of T...
In a new album dedicated to Celia Cruz, Angelique Kidjo reignites Cuban classics with their Afrobeat roots / Financial Times

Posted At: April 12, 2019 12:00 AM

Exiled from Cuba by Fidel Castro's revolution, the singer Celia Cruz settled in New York, living for a while in Hell's Kitchen. Thirty years later, forced out of Benin by the Marxist-Leninist regime, Angélique Kidjo found herself in New York living on the same block. She was already a fan of the Cuban singer, having seen her on a 1974 tour of Africa in the wake of the Rumble in the Jungle. This fa...
Angelique Kidjo: Celia on npr - First Listen

Posted At: April 11, 2019 12:00 AM

Angélique Kidjo now has a pair of albums that are essentially covers of other artists, but interpreted with an African sensibility so majestic as to render the originals almost as source material. Celia refers to Celia Cruz, perhaps the most well-known vocalist to come from Cuba during any era. The ten tracks span several decades of Cruz's career, from before she left Cuba in 1960 to her g...
Angelique Kidjo set to perform 'Remain in the Light' at UPAC / Chronogram

Posted At: April 2, 2019 12:00 AM

Nearly 40 years after its release, Remain in Light's groundbreaking fusion of African polyrhythms, funk, electronics, and New York new wave has seen the set dubbed one of the most influential albums of all time. In 2017, the Library of Congress selected it for inclusion in the National Recording Registry for its being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant," and it played a crucial pa...