Presented by Citi and Cisco, the Global Citizen Festival is calling on world leaders, major corporations and philanthropic foundations to take to the Global Citizen Festival stages and announce new commitments to End Extreme Poverty NOW. “The future of the continent of Africa, and indeed the planet, depends on the empowerment of women and girls,” said Kidjo. “I am proud to collaborate with Global Citizen to send a clear message to governments and leaders: it’s time to listen to the next generation. The young women and girls of Africa are not silent – they deserve to be heard. It’s time for the world to take notice.”

The winner of five Grammys with 14 albums to her name, Angélique Kidjo is one of the greatest artists in international music today. Time Magazine has called her “Africa’s premier diva” and she has cross- pollinated 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 recently released Queen of Sheba – it’s on Spotify – with Ibrahim Maalouf from Lebanon. In an exclusive interview with FORBES AFRICA from Paris, Kidjo says she is right now, in a moment where “things are blooming in her inspiration zone”. She talks life, work and the road ahead for her – and African music.

May 31, 2022 – Ibrahim Maalouf and Angélique Kidjo have announced that their new album Queen Of Sheba will be released June 24. While these two superstars of international music have collaborated before, this is their very first album together.

Grammy-winning Beninese singer, Angelique Kidjo, is the recipient of the Headies Hall of Fame in its 2022 edition. This was announced on the Headies official Instagram page, alongside the full list of the nominations for the music award.

Eclectic singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo was born in 1960 on the cusp of a new era: Her homeland, now called Benin, was just two weeks away from becoming independent from France. But her ancestral village, Ouidah, remained haunted by its past. It was one of the most notorious centers for transport of enslaved people to the Americas.

That history is the inspiration for “Yemandja,” a musical theater piece conceived by Kidjo; Jean Hébrail, her husband; and Naïma Hebrail Kidjo, their daughter. Angélique Kidjo leads a cast of 10 in the central role of a Yoruban orisha (or spirit) in the production, which makes its Washington bow May 6 and 7 at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater.

Angelique Kidjo makes it clear that this is a category that should have a mission: "We've got to educate people to understand that it's not just commercial music that is 'music.' We have music in the global category that is the roots of all the commercial music that people are listening to. It's important to go back and find out where the commercial music you are listening to comes from. "We need to bring the topic of global music to the forefront of the Grammys. We need to have a constant discussion to improve and get better. The whole world is watching."

Beninese diva-superstar Angelique Kidjo and David Byrne had known each other for many years before they ever thought about working together. In 2018, Kidjo released Remain in Light, a track-by-track reimagination of the seminal record by the Talking Heads, of which Byrne was the large-suited frontman. And amidst a lockdown landscape, both have stayed hard at work, with Kidjo—who is nominated for three Grammys this year, including Best Global Music Album and Best Global Music Performance—starring in Yemanja, a music theater performance that she created with her daughter, and Byrne starring in American Utopia, the Broadway adaptation of his tenth studio album. The two remain close, though in light of the pandemic, they haven’t had an extended chance to chat until now. In order to reconnect, they hopped on the phone to discuss African musical entrepreneurship, generational shifts in young artists’ agency, and what’s to come for Afrobeats at large.

Around the world, Benin-born singer, songwriter and activist Angélique Kidjo is musical royalty. Widely considered the “Queen of African Music,” she has performed at United Nations, Olympic and Nobel Prize ceremonies, collaborated with musical luminaries from Bono to Philip Glass and recorded numerous albums, four of which have won Grammy Awards.

On Friday, March 4, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, she will become a goddess in “Yemandja.”