For her fourth album, Angélique Kidjo needed to return to Africa. She wanted to find her musical roots, to see if the sound of the drums still has its power. She found her drums. More specifically, she found chants, calabash, cowbells, bamboo, berimbaus and many instruments she herself had not known before. After recording them all, Kidjo went back to France and the US and melted the sounds from Benin together with Western expressions. The result was a beautiful, lively mix that sounds just right.
Kidjo wrote and composed her songs after she had done all the African recordings, letting them be her inspiration. This album is the first where she uses English in addition to her native Fon and Yoruba languages, and she uses them as rhythmical instruments as well as for meaning. Sometimes they mean something, sometimes they might seem as if they mean something, and sometimes they are just euphonious, like all the other instruments. The finishing polish is added by several Western artists, most notably Carlos Santana, who gives the lullaby Naïma a magical hue.
Fifa is an album of joy. It is shaped like a wave: Starting off with a celebration of Angélique Kidjo's return to her homeland, it grows stronger and noisier with each song. It calms down with songs of contention in the middle, then grows livelier than ever before it reaches the end, the aforementioned amazingly beautiful lullaby created for the artist's baby daughter. It is obvious that Kidjo has found what she was looking for - fifa, or peace.
Songlist
- The Sound of the Drums
- Wombo Lombo
- Welcome
- Shango
- Bitchifi
- Fifa
- Goddess of the Sea
- Akwaba
- Koro-Koro
- Naïma
Fifa was published in 1996 on Mango Records.
Fifa the song is a warm, lullaby-like melody, tenderly performed by Angèlique Kidjo celebrating her recently arrived daughter. Before you know what the words mean, you know that they are loving. The language is fon, but the meaning is universal: it is the sentiment every happy parent feels admiring their innocent newborn one.
The calm, lullaby-like atmosphere is accented by the voice of a happy or sad wailing woman in the distance, probably a recording from Benin. Kidjo is also accompanied by a fifa-chanting chorus, but the song rests on her voice and her feelings.
o
OOO
Gbèdo dokoun nou min lé
Bo nan vi min bo houn dji lo
Gbèdo dokoun nou min lééé
Bo vi vivè wa gbètché min lo
Sousou towé nin yon looo
O djidido wè n'bio nou wé
Afotowé didé nin yon loooo
Bonou wiwa towé ninon té
Life brought me a treasure
I was lucky to give birth to my child
my dearest child...
I hope she'll grow up,
I hope her life will be happy
Her dreams will be beautiful and will last
Gbèmin dié awa é
Fifa wè nan non ha wé
Gbèmin dié awa é
Fifa iyééééé nou we lo
N'do fifa iyéééééééé
Fifa awa djidjè wanyinyin nou wé lo
To you, my newly born baby,
I wish peace and happiness
Love, peace and happiness
Gbèdo dokoun nou min lé
fifa-fifa-fifa,
Bonan min vi bo dji loo
fifa-fifa-fifa,
Gbèdo dokoun nou min lé
fifa-fifa-fifa,
Bonan min vi bo dji loo
fifa-fifa-fifa...
OOO
o
To you, my newly born baby,
I wish peace and happiness
Love, peace and happiness
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