by Cyclone Wehner

You don't need to hear the animated Angelique Kidjo speak to appreciate that she is the very embodiment of energy. A quick glance over her bio is enough. In the past decade this prolific artist has released no less than five albums and toured almost constantly, while at the same time tending to her young family (Angelique's daughter, Naima, has just reached school age). 'I love it,' Kidjo says from New York, where she is (typically) just passing through. 'I love to be on the road. I love to be on stage. Therefore I can travel a lot. I like to travel, too, because it allows me to meet people from different cultures.'

Since the African soul-funk diva first emerged on the international scene around the turn of the decade, she has been on a mission to undermine Western delineations of The Other. In her work she has also asserted that the African continent has a deep history and a culture -- and, in fact, any number of histories and cultures.

Growing up in an artistic, broad-minded family, Kidjo had already established herself as a female performer in her homeland of Benin (where the Vodun religion originated) when she left for Paris in the early 80s. Kidjo could no longer tolerate the repressive political climate under a communist regime. In the French capital she discovered a bohemian community of African musicians. While Kidjo had originally intended to study law, she chose instead to attend jazz school, where she met her chief collaborator (and future husband), Jean Hebrail. Kidjo realised that she could more effectively bring about social change through music than by practising law.

What makes Kidjo's pop revolutionary is that she defies any kind of preconceived classification -- here is an artist who freely celebrates both a rich African heritage and her beloved American influences, reminding audiences that the two pop traditions share the same roots. Understandably, the term 'World Music' is not one that rests comfortably with this boundless artist. Kidjo dismisses it as a polite PC label that is fundamentally dependent on an inequitable socio-economic paradigm. Indeed, those artists from the Second and Third Worlds who find themselves in the 'World Music' racks are inevitably marginalised -- if not ghettoised -- in the marketplace. Kidjo believes all music is World Music, although, again, the origins of today's pop -- from rock to dance -- can be tracked back to Africa. 'I love things that physically -- and rhythmically -- come from Africa, like techno beats and even jungle.' She adds by way of an afterthought, 'I don't want to keep my music for myself. I want to share my music. I just want people to recognise where it comes from.'

Above all, Kidjo has long been set on dispelling the false ideological representation of Voodoo perpetuated in Western pop culture, especially by Hollywood's machinery. This mythologising gained momentum in the wake of Haiti's bid for independence in the early nineteenth century. Haiti became the first enslaved settlement to successfully revolt against European colonialism. Vodun, being a communal religion, had united the oppressed population. 'When the first colonists arrived in Africa it was hard for them to let it go, because the Vodun religion brings everybody together -- when everybody is there you can talk about things that happen in your country. And you can decide together to take action and say we don't want the white people ... And the white people didn't want those kind of things, because they wanted us to be divided.' Vodun, she explains, is a universal belief system that brings the spiritual into daily life. 'Vodun religion doesn't have anything to do with white, black, yellow or red ... We believe we are all the same, because we all belong to the human race. Even the animals are equal to the human beings. Before any ceremonial sacrifice we decide how many chickens and goats are going to be killed, because you have to respect the balance of nature.'

Kidjo's latest album, "Oremi" (My Friend), is the first volume in a trilogy that she hopes will map the Black Diaspora. "Oremi" visits America. The second will visit Brazil and the third Haiti, Cuba and New Orleans. 'When I was growing up in Benin and I discovered the existence of slavery through the music,' Kidjo remembers, 'I said to myself, I have to find a way to build a bridge between the Black Diaspora and all the communities in the world. Because slavery was possible -- and the holocaust was possible -- because of a misunderstanding of all human kind. We don't speak to each other enough. We're not curious enough about each other. We let prejudiced ideas and our fears take over. The relationship can happen. We are all human beings. We all have the same needs. We all want peace and happiness ... And music is something that brings all of us together. Music has nothing to do with colour. Music has nothing to do with nationality. It's a language we all can speak.'

And so, on "Oremi" Kidjo acknowledges the thread that exists between Africa and Black Africa. If nothing else, music expresses the unbroken cultural link. Appropriately enough, Kidjo worked with several American musicians and singers -- among them Cassandra Wilson, Branford Marsalis and Kelly Price -- thereby exploring the friendship theme through a series of musical exchanges. Although "Oremi" reveals a fluid mix of R&B, soul, funk, jazz, blues, pop and even electronica, its appeal to the US R&B audience is conspicuous. And, in fact, when the album was released in the States last year, Kidjo's label, Island, pitched it directly to these listeners.

Price is perhaps the most unexpected guest on the album. This rising star is well known to R&B fans in this country as the soulstress who sings the poppy hooks on various hits by rapper Puff Daddy and his Bad Boy family. Last year Price delivered her solo debut, "Soul Of A Woman", via Ronald Isley's T-Neck label. Kidjo recollects that the two were introduced through a mutual colleague -- producer Peter Mokran (Maxwell, Lisa Stansfield). When they met, Price, who was raised in New York's projects, wanted to know all about Africa, which eventually prompted Kidjo to say to her, 'Why don't we start talking about Africa in a song together?' The result is the gorgeous duet "Open Your Eyes". 'She is a great singer,' Kidjo says. 'You have a lot of R&B stars, but she can sing -- believe me.' Now Angelique plans to work with yet another urban music star -- Wyclef Jean of the Fugees, whom she lately met in New York. The two share a background steeped in Vodun, as Wyclef spent his formative years in Haiti before emigrating with his family to the States.

In another symbolic gesture, "Oremi" finds Kidjo reinterpreting Jimi Hendrix's classic "Voodoo Chile" (it was actually lifted as the album's first single). 'I've always been a fan of Jimi Hendrix,' she says. 'My brother used to play Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana -- those two guitar players were his idols. When I was a little girl, I didn't realise how big those two guitar players were to my brother. I don't know why. When I went to France I made a friend who is also from Benin. He is a big Jimi Hendrix fan too. I mean, you can ask him any question, he is unbeatable. And we were talking about Sting's cover of "Little Wing", because I liked that [live] album of his. I was saying, Man, I liked that Sting song. He said, Are you crazy? It's not a Sting song. It's a Jimi Hendrix song! I said, OK, don't kill me. I don't mean to insult you, c'mon. You know that if you're telling me something don't yell at me. He goes, You want to know more? I said, Yeah, of course. So he invited me to his house and played more songs for me -- "Purple Haze", "Castles Made Of Sand", "Little Wing" and then "Voodoo Chile". And from the moment I heard "Voodoo Chile", I was like [makes gasping noise] ... Sometimes you have the impression that some songs are waiting for you. I mean, they're there for you to say something ...'

A few years were to pass before Kidjo finally recorded "Voodoo Chile" in her own inimitable fashion -- flexing some 'throat guitar' in lieu of Hendrix's legendary finger work. 'It took me all those years to think about it,' says Kidjo, 'because I wanted to make my tribute to Jimi Hendrix and answer him and tell him that he is a Voodoo child, but there is nothing wrong with that. Because I am a Voodoo child myself. But I wanted to do it in my way, because I'm a singer and not a guitar player.'

"Oremi" is out through PolyGram.