Since she began releasing solo recordings in 1981, Beninese singer
Angelique Kidjo
has illustrated the reliance of Western popular musics on African traditions for inspiration. In 2018, the vocalist enlisted an all-star cast that included Nigerian drum master
Tony Allen
and some American indie rockers to display the coat of many colors that lies in the grooves of the
Talking Heads
'
Remain in Light
by revisioning the entire album through that lens.
Kidjo
is at it again with
Celia
, her album-length tribute to the queen of salsa, Cuban singer
Celia Cruz
. This time the connection is seamless.
began listening to
Cruz
's music in 1974, after seeing her perform in Benin as part of an African tour.
readily acknowledged the African influence in her music and sought to draw attention to it throughout her career -- especially after her exile from Cuba in 1959 -- by singing Yoruban songs exported during the slave trade some 400 years previously.
's affinity for the salsa pioneer grew deeper after being exiled herself from Benin when a Marxist/Leninist government took power during the '80s.
On
,
delivers ten tracks
recorded and performed at various points in her career (but focuses mainly on the '50s when she fronted
La Sonora Matancera
), revisioned through a rainbow palette of African sounds without sacrificing their Latin grooves.
Allen
returns on drums, while
Meshell Ndegeocello
appears on bass alongside saxophonist and renaissance man
Shabaka Hutchings
and his
Sons of Kemet
tuba boss
Theon Cross
(the entire quartet performs on "Bemba Colora"),
's longtime guitarist
Dominic James
, the
Gangbe Brass Band
from Benin, Togo guitarist
Amen Viana
, and others. Recorded in New York and Paris, the set commences with "Cucala." While its ringing guitars are drenched in Nigerian high life, the horn chart is drawn from South African jive while
lays down meaty, propulsive Afrobeat rhythms. On "La Vida Es un Carnaval," a late hit for
and the band weave through Ethiopian jazz and Senegalese funk. The singer employs cello, bass, marimba, percussion, piano, and organ on a reading of
Tito Puente
's "Sahara" that transitions from Berber-esque desert drones to Afro-Cuban son and rhumba. "Elegua" and closer "Yemaya" are both rooted in the Santeria chants
loved as a child. They are included as reflections of
's deep commitment to African traditional music.
's chart peels away the horn-driven guaracha feel of
's recordings with
to reveal their profound spirituality. The classic "Quimbara" transforms its standard-time guaguanco rhythms through
's 6/8 Afrobeat charge above a small army of percussion instruments and snaky guitar lines from
Viana
, who beautifully evokes a griot's kora. "Bemba Colora" is a proto salsa tune originally delivered by
on 1966's
Son con Guaguanco
. It's offered somewhat straight here, though its textures and dynamics are more frenetic thanks to
's guitar, and
Vane
's Farfisa.
succeeds on
because she not only pays revelatory tribute to a prime influence, but channels that very spirit of inspiration to deliver a high-water mark in her catalog. ~ Thom Jurek