Angélique Kidjo

0:05Oh, this is a Nerman? Road What are you singing to what's your what's your studio Mike? You always use the same one? No, you must know I Use telefunkin. Oh, okay. How come because I like it. I used to actually I use the Sun in Okay, it Yeah, and telefunkin is the same one to it's the copy of the old one with the lamp in it What we're here talking with Angelique key Joe welcome. Thank you very much. Yeah You're welcome. Oh, it pulled it nice and close. There you go. No, I can I can hear my suspect. Nice. How was the set last night? Do you have fun? Yeah, I do what what is live music to you? What is what is a great performer need to do? I? Don't know. I mean it depends of the performer

0:51I mean I grew up in the live music basically and studio is something that I I have been struggling to Get adapted to things my career have started because I start my career on stage over six years old Hmm stage has always been my safe heaven if you're most comfortable on stage absolutely What what about the stage makes you feel comfortable? The thing is about stages that there's no place for you to hide Or you give it or you don't if you have something in your guts You have to be you are put in a position where you have to give it to people for people to be able to give you back and As my mom used to say it if you go on stage you have to be ready to be naked Spiritually and even physically even if you have clothes on that's the only way for you to

1:39To reach out to other people's soul because soul has no color has no language And one thing that we definitely all have together as a soul and music speaks the soul language better than anything else You're gonna be with a lot of souls on stage in a couple hours here and we've had Lissy come by we had no one The welcome by no one knows what's going on in this stage. Do you know what you're doing in about two hours? No, not really no one does that's being naked on stage to you We have the tendency of trying to Plan everything all the time. It's a good thing, but sometimes you have to leave room for fantasy You have to leave rooms or unexpected thing to happen to you And that's the best way to leave because if you you can't control everything

2:25I mean we make plans you say today. I'm gonna do this and anything can happen And it becomes something else. What are you gonna do if you're not flexible? You're not prepared to follow the event from time to time and surf on top on eight then you lose it It'll be interesting to see what happens in a few hours. I'm excited to see everyone I'm gonna have fun. That's all I have. Yeah, I mean most most importantly I'm gonna have fun and now I hope the public will have fun and after that the rest is just the ice on top of the cake We do something on the show storytellers where we get you to talk about a song and I was hoping we could play a Woya with Dave Matthews. I really like that tune. I was wondering if you could talk about that experience Eoya, it's a song that When I was doing the opening for I was I open for Dave a couple of years back and

3:15He was always like man, we have to do something together. Yes, we have to do something together and I I played the song for him while we were We were touring together because I wrote the song during that touring and He said when you already call me So when I was really I call him and then he came and I explained to him what the song was about He came in Just sing right there. Did you write his vocal parts or did he write? No, he did. Oh, he did you said you read it So you find it easy to write on the road? Do you write on the road a lot? No, I don't like to write on the road I'm gonna go home. I write the idea will be somewhere Fluidin and then when I get home and sit down I start recording and putting the ideas down My husband is a computer geek and I hate computer sound. It's good to have somebody that takes care of

4:04He saved this is my husband used to say if this is the reverse of slavery, I'm happy to be a slave I say, yeah, but slave will say something different because their life are not that easy as yours and fun as yours He Like the fact that I don't I mean computer is something that is becomes necessary in our life But we make it missus necessary you can do you can still do a lot of people have to do stuff without computer and It is great and at the same time is really Allinating because some people sit on behind the computer for hours doing things thing that thinking that they are working really actively and Most of the time you not because you are mesmerized by the the the computer and you don't do one thing at a time You do many things and it's it's your attention span just get narrower and narrower and

4:55I would listen to an Radio show on NPR talking about how fast people forget what they learn and learn at internet because they know that on one Click they can go back to it when you learn something and you read in a book the different story because you have a picture different a different picture and Internet is a good thing and at the same time is a scary thing because there's no legislation on internet to protect our children from pornography from people ripping you off and Identity theft and people can just start any rumor and destroy your life on internet without being punished and and Sometimes it scares the heck out of me that we have that tool at our hand that is a great tool That could be a great tool, but we as human being we're gonna be the one that's gonna destroy that too, too

5:44How do you feel the download of your music then people people taking it for free? I mean, yeah, they get to hear your music that they probably wouldn't have heard elsewhere, but I mean the thing is people that download thing on internet If they like it some of them come out I mean most of the time people come back and buy because they've been the fact that it's the first step is free help them To sort out what they want if they want to listen to more they go ahead and and buy some and for me It's just a tool of Getting to know somebody and then pay for it later on is fine That's what I was talking about legislation before um When you write a music you write a song you Sometimes people when they download the song they don't think about the right of the person that write the song and

6:38Because there's no legislation to force people to at least pay a minimum Not paying ten dollars or whatever it is a minimum that we all artists will share and It's something that is really disturbing because everybody that worked deserve to be paid and Then the sense on internet that you can go ahead and take people's stuff freely without being Entitled to pay for it is something that is dangerous because what it does is If there's no reward on the work that you do Then you don't do it properly so you have you end up having a lot of stuff that are not good on internet because they say Why should I do it good and if somebody gonna take it for free anyway?

7:25So it's not giving a good example to the young kids to teach them the value of good work What's the solution then I Don't know how to make money in the future. I don't know I mean artists are making less and less money selling cities cities doesn't sell anymore concert are harder and harder because of the economical economic downturn But the best way for an artist to make money is to be on stage to tour Because live music is something that people will always like to come and see The thing about internet that is really for me. It doesn't attract me to download anything Perhaps I'm from an old school is that I like to see the city myself to read it to touch the thing

8:11To be able to know the process of doing this album it becomes too anonymous in the download and you just download in the history behind the Song you don't know the making of it. You don't know and It's kind of making it more Unpersonal and I don't want to be a robot. I'm an artist. I'm a human being I want you to know what going on and with my music how I write this song What is the story behind the song? So how do you write do you write music as well? Is it just the lyrics and you do what do you play? Little bit It's all the melodies are up there. Everything is in my head because I start writing music I was 12 years old I didn't play any instruments So I have to come up with everything now play every part and put it down before I recall Interesting we do something called five questions five quick questions one word answers road or studio

9:02Road Landon or McCartney Landon what's most important in a song lyrics melody or rhythm? I love them choose one can't It doesn't work like that when you don't write music you ask such a question because if they're not together. There's no there's no Holiness in the song. There's not one this in the song you cannot take one mean when I start writing my song I can't tell you when I finish the song which one come first Because one one thing I learned from the traditional musician in my country is that There are three essential things in a song The lyrics the melody and the rhythm Mm-hmm and all of them are one at the end of the day when you finish a song you have to hear one thing Not three and you don't know what it where it is and that's what make a great song

9:50You're you were talking about Landon or Mark Mark as Nick. I mean if you listen to the Beatles songs Till today, it's simple and Very complex at the same time. It's a good point and How do they do that? They did not ask themselves questions about it The song either they just do it the jam it they play the song and they they record it is the raw emotion that is there It's not thought about when you start that's what computer does today When you start writing music on the computer because you have access to so many sound you start adding this start adding this and the core of the song When it started you don't know where it is anymore It get lost on adding this and adding that that's why when I'm working in the studio writing song in my house I'm like keep it simple

10:36I always keep it simple voice A piano and a percussion that's it the rest will come later on Right Interesting I have to be able to sing my song a cappella or with one instrument or with two or with three If the song cannot stand by itself, it's not a song It's a fantastic answer On that topic though, and I wonder if you'll answer this one the song you've written you're most proud of All of them Okay It is true. It's like it's like children is that you asking parents that I've For children choose one of your children favorite children. I mean a child. What how can you do that? If I don't love a song it doesn't make it to an album I have tons of songs that are somewhere around floating around in my computer Because I didn't love them the way it didn't I mean it comes

11:22And it comes out and I didn't like the way it was it has to be Some that I can sing my entire life And I'm glad in my career that I haven't had a huge hit That I didn't like that I didn't like that I have to sing all the time. I don't know how people do that Well, you don't like this one you have to sing it every day hell no way I rather not sing And in one word angeli kijo It's me I like it. Thank you very much There's only one me here and it's very difficult to be me. So I don't want to be somebody else That's great. Thank you. You're welcome