Halfway through HOPE!!, an album stacked with guests of the likes of Pharrell, Davido, and Nile Rodgers, Angélique Kidjo is alone. “You Can” is the one track she carries solo, singing directly to her daughter Naïma: “I’m so sorry, you deserve much better than this world you were born into.”
That line came from a real conversation. Naïma Hebrail Kidjo, a Yale-trained actor and writer who co-created the musical Yemandja with her mother, told Kidjo she had to accept that the world her mother promised her would never arrive. The song answers that directly. “I’ve been fighting a real good fight to get us together. I hope you do better.” Kidjo apologises, then tells her daughter to pick up the fight.
The A COLORS SHOW session, released this week, puts the track on the platform’s signature single-colour stage. Kidjo has spent four decades filling halls with full bands and orchestras. Here the song has to carry itself on her voice alone.
HOPE!! is Kidjo’s 18th album, out 23 April through Parlophone/Warner Music, and dedicated to her late mother Yvonne, who used to tell Kidjo that hope is something you practise every day. Most of the record runs hot, with production from Shizzi and Pharrell and guests from Lagos to São Paulo. “You Can” is the moment the album goes quiet and gets personal.
Stream “You Can” HERE and get your copy of HOPE!! following THIS LINK