Angelique Kidjo: Activism Through Music
By Nicole Dotzenrod
Posted 10/4/2014
Growing up, Angelique Kidjo noticed that every album cover in her home was either a white male or a black male – no women. When one of her brothers came back from America and brought an Aretha Franklin album with him, she took it and screamed at the top of her lungs, “There is a woman on the cover of an album!” She knew from that moment that she wanted to be that woman someday.
Kidjo went on to become a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and activist.
Kidjo spoke at the University of Massachusetts last Wed. in the Bowker Auditorium in conjunction with the Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series about the importance of advocacy work and the role music has played to advance social causes. The talk was moderated by Bode Omojola, a professor at Mount Holyoke College.
Kidjo was born and raised in Benin in West Africa, the 7th of ten children. Kidjo said her parents instilled in her many valuable lessons that she carried with her for the rest of her life.
“My father used to always say, you’re never going to feel guilty under my roof. Guilt is a poison. You do something wrong, you ask for forgiveness and you walk away. If a person doesn’t want to forgive you, that is his business. You have done your share and that’s it. I grew up with no sense of guilt at all, and no sense of fear because my father said you’re always going to be afraid when somebody honks. The fear that saves your life is healthy. But the fear that cripples your creativity and your ability to be a human being and to reach out to other people – that fear has to go.”
Kidjo’s father taught his children that their brain is the ultimate weapon, and encouraged them to use it. If his children ever got into a physical fight, he would ask why they didn’t use their brain enough to challenge their opponent, and why they gave them the power to make them angry.
Her father taught her that being human is not a matter of color. He would say, “If you come back to this house and you tell me you failed because you’re black, I will slap you for the first time in your life. Because success and failure has nothing to do with your skin color. It might take time because some people are stupid around the world, but stand your ground and do what you have to do.”
Kidjo said her parents made their home a safe haven for her and her siblings, encouraging them to engage in free discussion. Her parents also encouraged their children to be educated. Kidjo recalled having an uncle whose daughters married very young. When he asked Kidjo’s father why he sent his three girls to school, he asked, “What is written on the forehead of my kids that says they are merchandise?”
Kidjo’s father passed away in 2008, and she said it has been very hard not to have his voice in her life.
“He would never give you the solution to any problem,” she said. “He would say, let’s walk back step by step and see where you went wrong. What sign haven’t you seen from the position where you are? If I give you my opinion it’s just my opinion. How will you find a solution yourself if I’m always here giving you one?”
Kidjo said being born into a large family with the parents she had was a blessing. “I lived in a house where we laughed a lot. Where music and art were at the center of it.” While her mother was pregnant with her, she would sing to her belly, and when Kidjo was born she started singing phrases before she spoke them. Her parents had a significant influence on her taste in music, and Kidjo remembers her father introducing her to classical music, which she resented at first, but learned to love.
She said that after seeing Aretha Franklin on an album cover, she knew she wanted that to be her. She also cited Miriam Makeba as having a great influence on the way she saw Africa. “She has given me the conscience of Africa,” she said, noting that Africans still rely on Western news sources for information. Kidjo said women in Africa are making progress. “I’ve seen things change drastically over the last 10 years,” she said.
Kidjo has done her part in helping the women of Africa, founding the Batonga Foundation which gives girls a secondary and higher education so that they can help bring change to Africa. She said some of the girls have dreams of being doctors, lawyers, and even the next president of Benin. Kidjo has also been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2002, helping
Africans be proactive about preventing diseases through vaccinations. “It has been rewarding, challenging, painful, emotionally draining absolutely – but you learn so much and it puts things into perspective.” Kidjo said her goal has been to “give our children a future that they can hold onto. That they can work for. That they are looking forward to.”