Thursday, December 31, 2020

Here's looking at you Kidjo


Ever since I listened the the latest episode of Soul Music (Icons passim), I have had the album above on heavy rotation. 

Never mind just "Once In A Lifetime," singer Angelique Kidjo recorded her own version of  the whole of "Remain in Light" in 2018 after coming full circle with the music from her arrival in Paris in 1983 fleeing the dictatorship in her home country of Benin. She heard the record at a student party and recognised the Afrobeats adopted by David Byrne and Brian Eno that made her feel both joyful and homesick at the same time.

Count me among the joyous syncretists. If you ever catch me among the culturally inappropriate parsimonious, finger-waggers; diskard me.

I am the sum total of my ancestors
I carry their DNA
We are representatives of a long line of people
And we cart them around everywhere
This long line of people
That goes back to the beginning of time
And when we meet - they meet other lines of people
And we say: bring together the lines of men

No comments: