Kidjo to Get First Black African Walk of Fame Star
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- Angélique Kidjo will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Aug. 18 at 11:30 a.m. at 7011 Hollywood Blvd., becoming the first Black African artist to receive the honor.
- "Hope," Kidjo's 2026 Africana-laced R&B album co-produced with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, will be supported by a tour running through 2027 and includes the anti-authoritarianism track "Bando."
- Kidjo's career totals five Grammys, nearly four million albums sold worldwide, and the bestselling autobiography "Spirit Rising" with a foreword by Desmond Tutu.
- The "Hope" album fulfills a deathbed promise Kidjo made to her mother — a choreographer and theater director who died during COVID-19 — to "sing my life after me," with the record dedicated to her mother's principles.
- Kidjo sings in five languages (Fon, French, Yorùbá, Gen-Mina, English), began performing at age 6 in her mother's Theatre du Benet company in Benin, and fled the country's dictatorship as a teen via clandestine night flight to Paris before signing with Island Records.
- Kidjo reimagined Talking Heads' "Remain in Light" and a Celia Cruz tribute in her back-to-back 2019 albums — after meeting David Byrne and quipping "I asked if he's sure he's American" — and also collaborated with Philip Glass on "Three Yoruba Songs" and "Symphony No. 12."
Why it matters: Kidjo's Aug. 18 Walk of Fame induction makes her the first Black African artist in the institution's history, capping a career spanning five Grammys and nearly four million albums since her 1991 U.S. debut "Logozo." The "Hope" album — a deathbed-promise tribute to her mother featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers — extends that legacy into sleek R&B territory she has rarely visited.
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