“Best We Can” is the name of the latest single release by Beninese singer and five-time Grammy winner Angélique Kidjo, who collaborated with the two musicians Nomcebo Zikode and James BKS. A comforting title and an aspirational goal, Kidjo’s driving beats and warm sounds also manage to dispel the omnipresent clouds. On Friday (24.11.2023), you can hear it for yourself live: HKW invites you to indulge in the vast spectrum of rhythms of African music at Tiergarten. Congolese rumba, Nigerian highlife, West African funk, Cameroonian makossa and so on… Combining influences from Caribbean reggae, North American rock, Brazilian samba, and European disco – there is hardly any other musician who so effortlessly draws on these genres, blending the sounds with her unique energy to create something entirely her own without shying away from vintage quotes or Afrofuturist tendencies. With a career spanning over forty years, Kidjo is rightly regarded as one of the most important West African artists and a key figure in contemporary African music. We are lucky to be able to experience her in Berlin – and just the right thing on these short days and at a time when we should all be reminding ourselves regularly: Let’s do the “best we can.”
Text: Alina Herbel / Photos: Fabrice Mabillot
HKW, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin–Tiergarten; map
Angélique Kidjo on 24.11.2023 at 20h. More information and tickets can be found here.
@hkw_berlin
