The Beninese diva wins the most prestigious American music award for the fifth time thanks to her album Mother Nature, released in 2021.
“We are all Africans!” This is how the Beninese diva concluded her brief speech giving thanks to the artists who contributed to the success of Mother Nature, her latest album released in 2021 and awarded this year by the Grammy Academy for Best World Music Album. Among them: Yemi Alade, Burna Boy, Mr Eazi, Sampa the Great, Zeynab, Lionel Loueke, Shungudzo, David Donatien, and Mathieu Chedid. The diva had already announced a few years ago when she received her third Grammy award, “The young artists of Africa will conquer the world like a wave”. This is exactly what she wanted to repeat by inviting these talents, who have become stars on the Continent and far beyond, and whose worldwide recognition is only a matter of time.
This year, Wizkid as well as Femi and his son Made Kuti were nominated in the same category as Lady Angélique, who will remain for a long time the most awarded African artist at the Grammys (to catch her, you’ll have to get to work right away). It must be said that her unbridled energy and audacity have led her to many projects and in all directions (Angélique can go from Ravel’s bolero to voodoo songs, from Celia Cruz’s salsa to the contemporary sounds of Nigerian afrobeats, and even Gainsbourg… can anyone do it better?) Like the late Manu Dibango, who was also a collaborator, she knows how to listen to the new sounds that emerge and create space for them. Like Miriam Makeba, who was one of her models, she lives between America, Europe and Africa and embodies wonderfully, today, Great Black Music. That of yesteryear as well as of today. And perhaps that of tomorrow: at this time, she is undoubtedly already working on it.
