Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music. By Angélique Kidjo. HarperCollins; 256 pages; $27.99 and £20

ANGELIQUE KIDJO’S childhood in Benin was a whirl of different languages and cultural influences. Hers was a family that spoke French, Fon and Yoruba, and placed equal emphasis on Catholic rites and indigenous spiritual rituals. This mixing has had a continuing impact on her career as a singer, which began with her mother’s theatre group at the age of six and has now made her one of Africa’s best-known performers, a woman who headlines concerts with Alicia Keys, Bono and Peter Gabriel. In her uplifting new autobiography, “Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music”, she revisits the childhood she spent living under Benin’s Marxist regime and illustrates how a supportive family and an intense passion for music allowed her to move onto the world stage. 

It was not easy for a girl to sing in Cotonou, the town where Ms Kidjo grew up. Though it was mostly matriarchal, it was still a society where females who performed in music clubs were assumed to be promiscuous and uneducated….Continue reading

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