Angélique Kidjo is releasing a track-by-track cover of Talking Heads’ groundbreaking 1980 album Remain In Light. As noted in a series of recent interviews, the Beninese singer-songwriter, actress, and political activist was inspired by the album’s utilization of West African musical ideas when she first heard it many years ago, and her forthcoming release reimagines the songs with that in mind.
Speaking with NPR, Kidjo explains:
I discovered the album [Remain in Light] when I arrived in Paris in 1983. In the middle of the ’70s, we had a communist dictatorship that took place in Benin, and suddenly the radio we used to listen to Fela [Kuti], listen to The Beatles, listen to all kinds of music, becomes a place of darkness.
And when I arrived in Paris, I was determined to catch up with the music I didn’t have. I became a music junkie. I went to a party with some friends of mine and somebody started playing the song of the Talking Heads called “Once in a Lifetime” and everybody was standing and dancing weird, and me, I was grooving. And I told them, “This is African music,” and they go, “Hell no, this is rock and roll. You Africans are not sophisticated enough to do this kind of music.”
Kidjo’s take on Remain In Light dials back much of the original album’s sleek new wave production in favor of a style that puts more emphasis on the record’s West African influences, even incorporating lyrics from the Yoruba and Fon languages. Nevertheless, the recreation also features appearances by American artists like Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and British acts like Blood Orange, in addition to prominent African musicians like Fela Kuti drummer/musical director Tony Allen and Black Panther score percussionist Magatte Sow.
“I always say, when you are inspired by a music, and you acknowledge that source of inspiration, it is cultural expansion,” Kidjo tells NPR. “But when you deliberately take somebody’s music and put your name on it, it’s not even cultural appropriation, it’s stealing — period. Cultural appropriation doesn’t exist.”
“The Talking Heads, when they released this album, in the press release they acknowledge the fact they were listening to Fela when they did this album,” she continues. “They were reading the book [African Rhythms and African Sensibility] of [John Miller] Chernoff, and they tell people, ‘You want to understand our album? Listen to Fela and read the book.’”
Kidjo’s Remain In Light will officially drop on June 8th—just 13 months after she hosted a May 2017 tribute to Talking Heads at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. However, you can listen to the full album via NPR‘s First Listen for the next few days. You can also check out a new WNYC interview in which Kidjo and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne discuss the making of the original album, Fela Kuti, and more.
Angélique Kidjo – “Once In A Lifetime” (Talking Heads cover)