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Grammy Winner Angelique Kidjo to perform in Iowa City

02-14-2008 | Music

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World music star and human rights activist Angelique Kidjo, fresh from her triumph in Contemporary World Music category at the 2008 Grammy Awards, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 6, in the University of Iowa Hancher Auditorium, UI officials announced.

Kidjo, of Benin, travels the world as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and has become a spokesperson on African child-labor issues, advocating for the children who have been drugged, kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers in African wars.

She will discuss these problems in two free events:

-- 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 5, in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol, co-sponsored by the UI Center for Human Rights.

-- 7 p.m. March 5 in Celebration Hall of the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa, 55 12th Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids. More information available at http://www.blackiowa.org.

Her Grammy winning recording, Djin Djin, was Kidjo's fifth album to be nominated for a Grammy. It features guest artists including Alicia Keys, Carlos Santana, Josh Groban, Branford Marsalis, Peter Gabriel, Joss Stone and Ziggy Marley.

"I'm proud to be an African artist because I come from Africa and African music has been the biggest influence on me," Kidjo says in a UI press release. "But I'm also a world musician in the true sense of the term."

As a child, Kidjo was mesmerized by an iconic album cover of Jimi Hendrix, which led her to follow the African roots of music from the United States, Brazil and the Caribbean. The results -- combining Afropop, Afrobeat, reggae, gospel and Latin influences -- were the Grammy-nominated trilogy of albums, Oremi, Black Ivory Soul and Oyaya.

With Djin Djin (pronounced "gin gin"), Kidjo returned to the soul of Benin, but with a marriage of cultures reflected in her line-up of all-star guests. Inspired by the traditions and culture of Benin in West Africa, the title of the album refers to the sound of the bell that greets the beginning of a new day for Africa.

"It was important to me that all of these great musicians come with me back to my roots," Kidjo says. "I've never compromised those roots because I know my identity, and I've learned that in order to give through music, you have to position yourself among other individuals who may be from different cultures and background and then find ways to discover that we're actually not different at all."

Last year, in addition to touring with Josh Groban's "Awake" show, she contributed her version of John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" to the CD Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. Bono of U2 has described Kidjo as the galvanizing voice of sub-Saharan Africa.

Tickets for the March 6 concert at Hancher are $35/32/29; UI student $31.50/15; senior citizen $31.50/28.80/26.10; youth $24.50/22.40/20.30. Call 319-335-1160 or toll-free 1-800-HANCHER. Tickets may be ordered online at http://www.hancher.uiowa.edu.