Angelique Kidjo “Remains In Light”


Pitchfork tells us: ‘Kidjo escaped Benin to France, fleeing a censorious dictatorship that demanded she use her burgeoning music career for state propaganda. Her musical universe expanded instantly in Paris, as she looked for new sounds with restless enthusiasm. At a college party, she heard “Once in a Lifetime,” the existential hit from the Talking Heads’ 1980 classic Remain in Light, and rightly recognized the African rhythms at work. But over the next two decades—even as Kidjo moved to New York, found an early champion in David Byrne, and became one of her generation’s true African crossover stars—she never listened to Remain in Light in full or even knew what it was called. That changed after Donald Trump’s election in 2016.’

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