Angélique Kidjo (born on July 14, 1960) is a Grammy Award-winning Beninese … Read Full Bio ↴Angélique Kidjo (born on July 14, 1960) is a Grammy Award-winning Beninese singer, noted for her diverse musical influences and creative music videos.

Kidjo was born in Ouidah, Benin. Her father is Fon from Ouidah and her mother is Yoruba . She grew up listening to James Brown, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, and Santana.

By the time she was six, Kidjo was performing with her mother's theatre troupe, giving her an early appreciation for traditional music and dance. She started singing in her school band Les Sphinx and found success as a teenager with her adaptation of Miriam Makeba's "Les Trois Z" which played on national radio. She recorded the album Pretty with the Camerounese producer Ekambi Brilliant and her brother Oscar. It featured the songs Ninive, Gbe Agossi and a tribute to the singer Bella Bellow, one of her role models. The success of the album allowed her to tour all over West Africa. Continuing political conflicts in Benin prevented her from being an independent artist in her own country and led her to relocate to Paris in 1982.

While working various day jobs to pay for her tuition, Angelique studied music at the CIM, a reputable Jazz school in Paris where she met and married musician and producer Jean Hebrail with whom she has composed most of her music. She started out as a backup singer in local bands. In 1985, she became the front singer of the known Euro-African jazz/rock band Jasper van't Hof's Pili Pili. Three Pili Pili studio albums followed: Jakko(1987) Be In Two Minds (1988, produced by Marlon Klein) and Hotel Babo (1990). By the end of the 1980s, she had become one of the most popular live performers in Paris and recorded a solo album called Parakou for the Open Jazz Label.

She was then discovered in Paris by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell who signed her in 1991. She recorded four albums for Island until Chris Blackwell's departure from the label. In 2000 she was signed in New York by Columbia Records for which she recorded two albums.

Her musical influences include the Afropop, Caribbean zouk, Congolese rumba, jazz, gospel, and Latin styles; as well as her childhood idols Bella Bellow, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Miriam Makeba and Carlos Santana.

She has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2002. With UNICEF, she has traveled to many countries in Africa. Reports on her visits can be found on the UNICEF site. Kidjo founded The Batonga Foundation which gives girls a secondary school and higher education so they can take the lead in changing Africa. The foundation is doing this by granting scholarships, building secondary schools, increasing enrollment, improving teaching standards, providing school supplies, supporting mentor programs, exploring alternative education models and advocating for community awareness of the value of education for girls.

She has campaigned for Oxfam at the 2005 Hong Kong WTO meeting, for the their Fair Trade Campaign and travelled with them in North Kenya and at the border of Darfur and Chad with a group of women leaders in 2007 and contributed to the video for the In My Name Campaign with Will I Am from The Black Eyed Peas. She has hosted the Mo Ibrahim Foundation's Prize for Achievement in African Leadership in Alexandria, Egypt on November 26th, 2007 and on November 15th, 2008

Tumba
Angélique Kidjo Lyrics

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People
This is not a film
This is my song
Now pick up your shovel and
Dig
I don't want to bring your Gods down babe
I don't want to bring your Gods down babe
Their flesh and blood for you too real

The wine that flows from their nostrils
Too red
Their master strokes too fundamental
Their saint soaked cathedrals too done
I don't want to bring your Gods down babe
I don't want to bring your Gods down babe
The ferocity of their cat claws too steel
And we the weak kneed weeds of their
Weaker breed never paused to feel
We're not the masters of the land we survey
But I guess you'd come to that conclusion
When you're ready in your own time anyway
I don't want to bring your Gods down babe
I don't want to bring your Gods down babe
Because their armour and their crest cuts too deep
And the cold landcliffs where they rest are far too steep
But I just wanna say to you that like your

Gods, your guilt and your beliefs I too wanna be
With you 'til the very end babe

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Angélique Kidjo’s Tumba are a reflection on how colonialism and tribalism are intertwined in African culture. The song begins with a call to dig and hints at the concept of digging graves to bury the past. As the song progresses, Kidjo speaks about how Africans need to move past tribalism and embrace unity. She croons about how she does not want to bring down the Gods of any tribe, but she wants people to acknowledge that they are not the masters of the land they survey.

Kidjo then takes aim at Africans who have embraced Western culture and religion, effectively colonizing themselves. She talks about how the symbols and expressions of traditional African Gods and religious beliefs have been white-washed and dismissed as primitive, while Western religions are prioritized. She warns that the guilt and beliefs of the African people, no matter what they are, should be acknowledged and respected.

In conclusion, the lyrics of Tumba are a call for unity and an acknowledgement of the mistakes of the past. Kidjo reminds her listeners that African culture is complex and diverse, but the only way to move forward is to embrace that diversity and stop allowing outsiders to dictate their beliefs and values.

Line by Line Meaning

People
Hey everyone

This is not a film
This is real life

This is my song
This is my message

Now pick up your shovel and
Let's get to work

Dig
Do the hard work that needs to be done

I don't want to bring your Gods down babe
I don't want to undermine your beliefs

Their flesh and blood for you too real
You take their beliefs very seriously

The wine that flows from their nostrils
Their rituals are very important to you

Too red
Too intense

Their master strokes too fundamental
Their beliefs are deeply ingrained

Their saint soaked cathedrals too done
Their places of worship are too important to question