Angélique Kidjo (the A-Side)

Available for over a year

Angélique Kidjo, the "Queen of African music" discusses her 1994 breakthrough album, 'Ayé'. Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios, each edition includes two episodes - the A-side and B-side. In the A-side, the Grammy nominated singer-songwriter and activist from Benin talks to John Wilson. She also performs exclusive versions of key tracks, including "Agolo," "Adouma" and "Djan-Djan". The album has been described as "a spellbinding one-world statement" where "Kidjo treats her voice like it's a percussion instrument". One of ten children, Angélique Kidjo grew up in Benin in West Africa. But in the 1980s she moved to Paris to escape the communist regime and began synthesising the music of her native country with rock, funk, electronica and Euro-pop. Kidjo has collaborated with artists as diverse as Alicia Keys, Philip Glass, the Kronos Quartet and Peter Gabriel and been declared as the "the undisputed Queen of African Music." Her albums regularly top the World Albums Charts and her gift is said to be "to pour what could so easily be anger and frustration into songs that uplift and inspire us." In the B-side of the programme, it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions. Producer: Clare Walker First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2014.