Culture

FORCE OF NATURE

n a video call from Paris, Angélique Kidjo, 60, shifts and leaps in her seat with the restive energy of a teenager. “I’m always changing and innovating and this album is no different,” she says. “Change brings life to things; it keeps me going. In life, you never know what to expect.” Over a career that spans five decades, the Beninese artist has crossed paths with everyone from Gilberto Gil and Tony Allen to Talking Heads, Bono and Vampire Weekend. On her new album, Mother Nature, her 15th, she takes on sounds that she has touched before – Cuban salsa, Congolese rumba, soul, jazz and west African musical traditions – and blends them with modern African pop, in collaboration with a younger generation of stars including the Nigerians Burna Boy, Yemi Alade and Mr Eazi and the Zambian rapper Sampa the Great. The songs on