Keep on Moving: The Best of Angelique Kidjo

I have no idea why I bought this. Just a lucky whim I guess. A strange mixture of blues, funk and African influences which works amazingly well. I just love this album.

Angelique brings that joyful African magic to her songs which lift and educaate you, make you want to dance and be joyful about being alive. Wonderful!

...It is amazing that such a big voice comes out of such a small person.Sadly, I doubt that AK will ever move product in the same volumes as Jewell (but, hey, we can always dream!). She's never really cracked the market bigtime, and past 40, her days for being marketed as a "hot chick singer" are fading (Tina Turner notwithstanding). This disk, as pleasant an introduction to her music as it is, has all the markings of one last push to put her over the top (and make some money off her back catalog). I can't believe it was an accident that the first two tracks on this disk (Gershwin's "Summertime" and Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)") are the two songs with which the uninitiated will be most familiar. Hopefully there is a big enough market for her music that AK can remain a commercially viable artist, since she shows no real signs of slackening creatively.So much for the biz, what about the music? Well, it covers all the obvious tracks, from "Agossi" from her first "international" album, to an acoustic version of "Malaika," to her upbeat dance numbers. Her take on "Summertime" is memorable, as is her "Voodoo Chile," (though nothing could compare to the absolutely ferocious version I heard her perform live). Like one of the other reviewers noted, it would have been nice to have included her duet with Cassandra Wilson on "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" from that singer's "Traveling Miles" album. ("What's with all this voodoo?," you might ask. Well, they invented that stuff in Benin.) My nomination for another track for inclusion would be AK's mind bending mountain o' overdubs version of "Oh Holy Night" off the International Special Olympics Christmas album (great disk - check it out!). But at 74 minutes playing time, and nary a weak track, you can't complain about being shortchanged.

This is a must have for anyone who likes jazz or world music, with elements of rock and swing. Original tunes and some great interpretations of covers too, both standards and rock, especially Voodoo Chile and Summertime.I would highly recommend this to anyone.