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.