March 28, 2024

Angélique Kidjo

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Global pop superstar Angélique Kidjo brings her brilliant reimagining of the Talking Heads’ great opus, “Remain In Light” to the FirstWorks stage! With her "canyon filling voice" (Billboard) and radiant charisma, "Africa's premier diva" (Time Magazine) is a chart-topping, three-time Grammy®️ Award winner who blends the West African traditions of her childhood with R&B, funk and jazz.

With “Remain In Light,” Kidjo and her five-piece band underscore the album’s African roots with repatriated grooves, and traditional African language proverbs layered throughout.

Popular music was never quite the same after the Talking Heads (who met as students at RISD) released “Remain in Light” in 1980. Following her exile from Benin, Kidjo recalls how the album’s Afrobeat polyrhythms and Brian Eno-produced soundscapes, driven through the eclecticism of frontman David Byrne, helped to bridge her past and her future in the Western world. “This is African,” she remembers thinking, “yet it’s got something that is turning my head upside down.”

Presented as part of FirstWorks Artistic Icons Series

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