Angélique Kidjo

0:00BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.

0:17Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which the world's leading creative people reveal the formative influences and experiences that help shape their own creativity. I'm John Wilson, and my guest in this episode is the West African musical superstar Angélie Kijot. Born under French colonial rule in 1960 in Dahomey, Angelique first started singing professionally when she was a teenager. Amid violent political upheavals in the 1980s, she fled her country, which had been renamed Benin, and became an exile in Paris. It was there that she was discovered by the legendary Island Records boss Chris Blackwell, who signed her to his label.

0:56Hailed as the new queen of African music, it was the start of a three-decade career.

1:06She's recorded 15 albums, worked with a diverse array of musical collaborators and won five Grammy Awards.

1:16In 2023, Anjali Kijou was the recipient of the Polar Prize, regarded as one of the world's most prestigious musical awards.

1:33Angélie Kijot, welcome to This Cultural Life. It's always a pleasure to be back. You were born in 1960 in Dahomey, which at the time was still under French colonial rule, but which became the independent Republic of Benin, I think just a couple of weeks after you were born. Two weeks. Two weeks after you were born. Your first choice for this programme as a creative influence is your mother. Before we talk about her, let's just talk about family life as a child. What earliest memories of upbringing? My earliest memories was me running around like crazy, talking at the same time to my mum, hearing my mum saying, can you slow down and just stay still?

2:14Because I grew up with seven brothers, so till puberty kicking, I thought I was a boy. And I used to tell my mum, when I grow up, I want to be James Brown. That's my earliest memory. So you were a very energetic child, by the way. I never stopped. Was it a very musical household? Oh, yes. It was musical, theatre and sport. Your mum ran a musical theatre company, or was it primarily a theatre company? It was a theatre company. Which incorporated music. She incorporated music in it because for the intermission, she needed something to keep the public in. So she travelled around pretty much and found music from everywhere and put a kind of a ballet in the middle of it.

2:59So she wasn't just producing these shows, she was writing and directing. Absolutely, and doing the lighting and everything. Was she encouraging you to sing from an early age? I've always sung, as long as I can remember. My father said that among all his children, I was the first one, the only one, that sung before talking. My father said, me and your mother, we were just like, is this child going to be able to speak one day? And then suddenly I started speaking at three. And then before I was just singing, the radio is playing somebody's singing a song. I start singing it. That's what my father said.

3:37This child have a memory for music. And my mom's explanation of that was once she was pregnant of me, there were no way to figure out what the gender of the child will be. And she has had so many boys before I come. And she was like, I'm praying God to have another girl because I'm surrounded by boys. How many siblings were there? We had 10, seven boys and three girls. I was the last one. And she said that one of my aunties would come back from the village for some health care issue in the city. And she would sat next to my mother and said, you know what? I'm going to sink to your belly. And I promise you, this child is going to be a girl.

4:19And I come out to be a girl. And I become a tomboy.

4:25So she was running this theatre company. Did she encourage you to take part in the show? Was there a moment when you first remember being on stage with your mum? It started home because everybody would come home to rehearse. And I memorised everything, even the parts spoken. So I would be sitting down next to my mum and I would tell my mum, she made a mistake, that phrase is not alright. The songs too, I remember all of them. So I would be sneaking inside the costume and smelling the chalk that they used to do, the makeup. And my mom is, because she doesn't have help, she's one woman show, right?

4:59Right. So every scene, she prepared the costume, and then suddenly she came and pulled me from under the costumes and said, you want to sing, right? Now it's your turn. I'm like, no, mom, I don't feel like it. I don't want to sing. By the time I said no, she put the costume on me and she shoved me in front of the public. I was like, I almost have a heart attack. I said, and then I can hear her. I was singing now. But everything was quiet. Nobody was speaking. There was only one light. It was a spotlight in my face. So I didn't know if the public was there. So I just stand out. I'm going to just do my stupid stuff.

5:34I do hope. And I start singing. And I sang and danced and do all my gimmick stuff. And then I sang and I go back. And then suddenly standing ovation. My mom said, you got to go back for the applause. I said, hell no. I've survived this. I'm not going back. But then it was already in me. I like it. I like the feverish thing, the fact that you're there. What I love about theatre is to be a character. How old were you? Six. So that was your stage debut. I was like, yeah! Well, that was the start of everything. You became a recording artist in Benin as a teenager. Yes. And started touring around West Africa.

6:16So that was the life ahead of you. You thought, this is going to be my job from now on. I don't think about it that way. I was in a melting pot. Thinking about it, it was just a mayhem of sound from the traditional music that I would go to every day, anywhere I hear it.

6:39And I come back, I would hear James Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, everybody.

6:52So folk music, pop music, rock music, soul music. Music from all the rest of Africa. Music from the Muslim world. Music from Asia. The first time I heard the chordal drums, I was like, I mean, all those things, because my father will go and find out music for us to listen. Because his take on this is, I'm sending you to school to be educated, to understand that the world that is moving is not against you. You've got to be part of the change. The world is always moving around. What you know today, tomorrow might be different. But for you to be able to grapple and be a citizen of this world, you need to be educated also in every form of art.

7:28And also you have to do sports. Because if you're healthy, you listen better, you learn better in school. So I was into that. I was into swimming because I was born with asthma. And I also run 1 ,500 meters in the national team of athletes because my father and my mother said you have to strengthen your lungs. Otherwise you'll be crippled by asthma. So all those were part of music for me. I grew up in that house where I was raised to think and to speak up my mind. And then when I turned 15, I heard Winnie Mandela talking about Nelson Mandela. I was sitting in the living room with my parents. She came on the TV.

8:07They have separated us completely from them and have driven us into an inevitable corner where you can only fight in the context of blackness. You can only hit back as a black because you are virtually isolated. He tells you you've got your own areas to live in. You are isolated in jobs. You are isolated in almost everything. So life has been reduced to black versus white, and that is the context of the struggle as a whole. And I said to myself, well, actually my skin color can be a liability for me. and it's a profound wake up call when you're 15, right? I was so mad I wrote a song and that song was like I'm going to kill everybody and my father said oh, come on, come on, come on let's talk come and sit down here Did you record that song?

8:57Yeah Let me tell you the story of the song and my father said I understand how you feel but as I said to you there's no hate in this house because as an artist you are the one that holds the key to open all doors you're feeling we understand it But unless you rewrite this song, you're never going to sing again in my house. If you want to sing this, not going to be under my roof. When you leave here, you can spill your head somewhere else, but not going to be in this house. So suddenly I calmed down. I rewrite the song, Azanaque, the day will come, it means. And then I changed completely the lyrics.

9:31And the chorus saying said, I'm dreaming of a day where there will be no more oppressor or no more oppressed people. that will see the sun when it shines the same way, equal to all of us. My father said, I take that. That's when I decided I'm going to be a singer.

10:08Let's just talk about singing in those teen years. Who were the big influences? I'm thinking at the time some of those superstars coming from the African continent.

10:25People like Fela Kuti or Miriam McAber, Hugh Masekela, people who use their music with a social message as well, often a political message. That's why. That's what I was listening to. That's why I have such an acute sense of justice, you know, because they come before me. I mean, I was lucky enough to meet Miriam Makeba in 1989. I opened for her at the Olympia Hall in Paris. And from that point on, we met at festival. She taught me so much because I always used to walk on stage with a watch. And she said, you got to take that watch out. She said, you're not counting your time when you're on stage.

11:05You don't do it in purpose by looking at your time. If you have it, you are tempted to look at it. It's disrespectful for your public. It means that you're getting bored. So if you're bored on stage, why are you on stage? So that's when you met her and you were sharing stages with her. What about when you were growing up and learning from her? Which of her albums or her tracks would have been inspirational? I started singing Miriam Makeba when I was eight years old. I started singing the retreat song from Miriam Makeba.

11:46Because my mom and her friends, they have a group of women fighting for women's right to vote. Women's rights to choose the partner of life, not to be married from one man to the other. And I was eight years old, and they would call me to tag along. because they say we can't even sing to save our own lives. We want you to sing with us. And I was singing, women are not objects. Women count. Women give birth to the humanity. I was eight years old singing those things. For me, it was an excuse not to do my homework. That's it. I'm not tagging along. I'm with mom. I can't do my homework. And then it hit me later on that I was already at the center of women empowerment at the age of eight without knowing anything.

12:34And Miriam McKayba providing a kind of soundtrack. And then at nine years old, I started listening really profoundly to an album of Miriam that came in and she was there or here with a... Headdress. That album, you have Malaika on it, and I started singing Malaika. I started singing Malaika and Miriam McKayba's song since I was nine all the way to today.

13:19And that Malaika song is one of the favorite songs of my mother. I mean, my mom passed away two years ago, June 26, two years ago. and she tell all the family, read it down, the day before they put me to the grave, you have to sing that song. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. And I had to do it. Alone or with other people? My brother was there, but they couldn't sing, so I was alone with my brothers around the coffin of my mum, and I have to do it. That was the hardest thing you've ever had to sing. Yes. So she was such a massive influence on you then, your mother, wasn't she? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

13:56My mom was just like fearless. Fearless woman and with a husband that is feminist. My father was a real feminist because he said, my house is open to everybody. We come together to talk about freedom, to talk about issues at the exception of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Those three subjects was not allowed home. Well, that idea of freedom must have been difficult to uphold in the 1970s when Benin was going through a really politically turbulent time. There was a military coup in 1972, which led to a Marxist regime. How did that affect your life, your family life and your life as an artist?

14:38The family life was a disaster because you find yourself home as in a jail cell. because for everyone to survive, not to end up in jail, you spy on people. People become a spy of the government. They can take a word out of context and you find yourself next day in the jail. So my father was called up on a meeting with the government. I want him to be part of the government. My father said, I'm just a retired postman. I don't do politics. I can't do, I can't have blood on my hand. I don't do it. So he came back and said, this is the deal. I know from the moment I say no, I'll be under scrutiny.

15:23And the phone was stopped. We didn't know. You see, the freedom we have speaking out, we could not have it anymore. Anyone that comes to the house, we have to be careful. It can be your family member. You doubted everybody. What it does, it just destructs and kills your humanity because you don't trust anyone anymore. You live in constant fear. And my father has always told me since I started singing that as an artist, I cannot be linked to any political party because they come in and they go. If I want to keep my freedom and be relevant to be doing the music that I love to do, I have to stay out of politics.

16:00So what happened when politics played a part in your artistry as a teenager and you were singing already about freedom? And then when the dictatorship arrived, they banned all the music that I'm not talking about. Ready for the revolution, the fight continues. You wake up and you sleep with it. And every artist in Benin was forced, demand, but forcefully demand to write about the ideology of that government. The glory of the revolution. And I say no. that year coincide also when I did my first album Pretty and I started touring in West Africa which took a little bit of pressure off me because I was never there they can't blame me for going to work to represent the country somewhere else even though I'm not singing the ideology of their communism but one day I was forced I was there to do something it was the meeting of all the head state of West Africa the ECOWAS head of state and I'm like, I can't do this.

17:03My father said, you just sing your song and leave. My mom and dad, they come with me because they were afraid I might say something. And I finished that show. I look at my parents. They say, we understand. Let's go home and talk. They realized that if I have to do another one, I'll end up in jail because I refused. So it took them a year to put money aside and to plan me leaving the country without asking for the authorisation because under that regime, when you're going somewhere, you have to ask for an authorisation and they have to stamp your passport. And you tell them when you come back. And when you don't come back, your family is held accountable.

17:44So that must have been an incredibly difficult decision for them in the first place, but for you to accept their decision on your behalf because you left Benin in 1982. I had to leave. I couldn't breathe anymore. and my parents couldn't let me be in jail because if I don't go, it's my father or my mother. So the whole point is to wait for an opportunity. So I had a cousin that was getting married and made my mom and dad witness of their marriage. And they live not far from the airport. So she was the only person and her husband to be in the secret of this and my grandmother. That you were going to escape the country?

18:25No one else. So, because we are such a prominent family in the country, people, even your neighbor that you trust, every time the door opens, everybody's looking who is coming in and who is going outside. So we need to put this like a show. So my parents and my whole family, we talk about the marriage. People know that they are going to be a witness of this marriage. And people know my cousin, too. We publicly talked about that. Then we went to the city hall for the marriage, and then we came back for the church run, and then we have the dinner the evening. I pack my stuff. My father have a garage.

19:06I put it in my father's car. Then I wear my evening gown, and everybody knew about that dress I was going to wear. The neighbors, they have to know that I'm going to the party coming back home. And in a plastic bag, I put my traveling bag. So when I arrived, the bride took my suitcase and got my father's car, not where everybody can see the car. We have a dinner, and then I have to go to the toilet. My father was already outside, so I get behind and I get into the car. And my mom has to stay because my father has to come back. so my father drove me to the airport but far from the door where there was no light the last face of my dad was behind the wheel weeping because i didn't ask for the authorization and he sent me himself what am i doing what am i doing what if they get you to jail what how can i live with myself with this i said dad please let me try i got just gotta leave i can't stay here Just let me try.

20:18And I get to the airport. I check my bag. And the nod was at the customs. Because the government in place, what they do is that the military, the guy that was in power, comes from the northern part. The division between the northern part and the southern part was still today in reality. So they team up, the southerner and the northerner, and they spy on each other. And when I arrived, I saw one of the friends of my brother that used to do music with them. Was on the desk. He froze. He looked at me. He knew I didn't have the authorization. He said, what are you trying to do? Run. My colleague just went to the dressing room.

21:03Just run. And I grabbed my plastic bag and I ran. I ran. I ran. I ran. I ran. And I go to the plane and dive under the seat. because I don't know if the military is going to come and check the plane. And I took the last flight of Air France that leave at 5 to midnight. I stayed there till the plane took off. I didn't even realize the plane. I was shaking of fear. And then I sat down. I couldn't drink. I couldn't eat. I was crying because I was like, please, God, my parents, I want them to be safe. And my brother was a student in Paris. He was the one that said to my parents, just give it a try.

21:39Just send her. she would be with me. So she came and picked me up. For my first six years I could not speak to my mum and dad. Because it would have put them in danger? Because when they asked them where I was they said I went on to and I never came back. That's how I left. Talking about it it was always emotional for me because now very rarely my father don't cry. But he was just in despair, total despair. I've never seen my that like that. But when you finally did make contact again six years later, he must have been overjoyed that not only by that time had you made it safely to Paris and you'd started a new life, but you were successful as well.

22:20And he hadn't been in trouble in all that time. Oh no, but they were on the screen. I mean, they could not do anything. They could not talk. What about the border guard who had let you through? Oh, that's an interesting question. A year and a half ago, I did a show in the suburb of Paris. Cray, it was at Cray. And a young lady came to me and she came and said, my father is the person that let you leave the country. And I wanted to find him to thank him. I was never able to. And she sat me down and tell me exactly what the father said to her. What happened is that they figured out that he let me go.

23:00So he never get in promotion. He get a shitty retirement fund, and he said to his daughter, I never regret one second for letting her go. Because I've seen her when she starts singing with her brothers, she had something that nobody else had, and I couldn't get on the way of that. And I said, what is your dad? Can you tell me how I get it? And then she said to me, unfortunately, he passed away a year ago. And then I start crying. I'm like, even that I couldn't do. So it's difficult for me when people are mistreating immigrant, what you leave behind is no one. I say no one will leave his comfort home or her comfort home to go somewhere willingly.

23:46Never. Life must have been difficult when you arrived in Paris alone. Your brother was there, I know, but that's a... He was a student too. Right, he was a student. You were signed by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, who had launched the early recording careers of so many artists, but I mean, Bob Marley, you too. Grace Jones. What did he do for you? And how did he find you in Paris? When I was in the jazz school in France, I met my husband and we did an album called Paracool that was produced by the founder of the school that had a label. And then once we recorded the album, he printed 500 CDs, gave me 250 and said, I can't do more than that.