Five-time Grammy-winning musician Ang\u00c3\u00a9lique Kidjo Tuesday will become the first African artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame<\/p>\n
Actor Willem Dafoe and Harvey Mason Jr., the CEO of the Recording Academy, are set to join Kidjo in speaking at the 11:30 a.m. ceremony at 7011 Hollywood Blvd., across from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.<\/p>\n
Kidjo and Dafoe have been friends since she was introduced to him following his performance in the play \u201cTo You, The Birdie!\u201d in the New York City borough of Brooklyn in 2002.<\/p>\n
The ceremony comes one day after Kidjo performed at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started singing when I was six years old, and I\u2019m grateful every day that I still get to live my passion and do what I love with my life,\u201d Kidjo said in a biography on her website, kidjo.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time I know that many people struggle to find joy, especially when there\u2019s so much to worry about in our world today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born in what is now the West African nation of Benin, Kidjo released the first of her 18 albums, \u201cPretty,\u201d in 1981. Her fourth album, \u201cLogozo,\u201d released in 1991, was her first to top Billboard\u2019s world music albums chart.<\/p>\n
Kidjo had two other albums top the Billboard world music albums chart \u2014 \u201cDjin Djin\u201d (2007) and \u201cEve\u201d (2014).<\/p>\n
She is a 16-time Grammy nominee, receiving her first in 1995 for best music video for \u201cAgolo.\u201d She won her first Grammy in 2008 on her fifth nomination for best contemporary world music album, \u201cDjin Djin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kidjo won best global music album Grammys in 2015 for \u201cEve,\u201d in 2016 for \u201cSings,\u201d in 2020 for \u201cCelia\u201d and 2022 for \u201cMother Nature.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kidjo\u2019s other honors include the 2015 Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum; the 2016 Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award; the 2018 German Sustainability Award; the 2023 Vilcek Prize in Music; and the 2023 Polar Music Prize.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it feels as though the world is losing hope at such a rapid pace that it\u2019s endangering our humanity,\u201d Kidjo sadi. \u201cWith all the music that I create, I want to show that anything and everything is possible \u2014 and that despite what the political rhetoric might have us believe, we are all deeply connected.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hope is that these songs bring happiness to everyone, but also remind them that we were all put here to help and love each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The star is the 2,854th since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961 with the initial 1,558 stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five-time Grammy-winning musician Ang\u00c3\u00a9lique Kidjo Tuesday will become the first African artist to receive a star on the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":632582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[404047,1582,276,17746,14107,105864,2961,224,5337,21272,132201,581,257291,79783],"class_list":["post-1009074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-angelique","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-fame","tag-hollywood","tag-kidjo","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-musician","tag-receive","tag-star","tag-unprecedented","tag-walk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117117754308360594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1009074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1009074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1009074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1009074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}