1 world iworld news, the iwerld news, the top story. the chinese communist party will empower —— unveiled their new top leadership line—up for the next five years. they will be looking for clues as to whether there is a successof clues as to whether there is a successor to president xijinping or whether his term will continue beyond the usual two terms. a different reception for donald trump in the us committee faced a protester accusing him of treason. two senators have criticised his effect on american politics. this story is trending online... two notes written by albert einstein have advice for happy living, and sold for $1.5 million, one recommends a calm and humble life, the other says "where there's a will, there's a way". it's time for hardtalk. africa has produced a host

of world —famous musicians, but very few of them are women. why? who better to ask than i guess today, angelique kidjo, who has been hailed as africa's premier diva, known for the passion in her voice and herfierce determination to help african girls fulfil their potential. three decades ago she had to leave her continent to become an international star. how much has africa and its music scene changed between then and now? angelique kidjo, welcome to hardtalk.

thank you for having me here. you are one of africa's biggest female stars, and that brings with it a real sense of responsibility, being under scrutiny. absolutely. do you find that difficult? no, i have nothing to hide. i know where i come from. i may not know where i am going, but i definitely know what the traditional music of my country has taught me to do with my voice and my music, to empower people, to bring joy to people, and to let people understand their own power and unleashed their own power. and as a woman, do you feel a particular sense of responsibility to, in a sense, like it or not, represent african women? yes, i feel that very much so. i was raised by two grandmothers and a mother that have a passion for theatre. and in the 1960s, she decided

to have a theatre piece on the life of the king. in that time, when you decide to do something like that, gee, it is not easy. so she wrote the piece, directed it, auditioned all the actresses and actors, did the costumes, and from that moment on, i was taught that it is not because you are a woman that you are not allowed to dream big. and in my case, i always say my case is one of the kind, because i was lucky to be born in a family where both parents were educated, and were really dedicated and determined to put the kids to school. doesn't matter what we do after. so your mother was very much a creative, independent role model for you. but when you started singing, i know your parents loved it, when you are a kid, as young as six years old you are singing and singing

fantastically well and making a name for yourself as a child in your home country of benin, i know that as you grew it became difficult to keep it going. the taunting started when i was 12 years old. you would be coming home from school and out of nowhere, bang, a stone hits you on the shoulder. throwing stones at you, calling you a prostitute. because you are singing? because i was singing. when you are a girl, you are singing, there is no other way for you to succeed if you are not a prostitute, and if you are a boy, there is no other way it you are not a junkie. so sex, drugs and rock ‘n‘ roll, in africa, the perception was taken literally. so today, when a girl comes out and tells her parents, i want to sing, i want to do music, the parents say, no, that's not a job. the perception of an artist in africa today is still a problem. even with politicians who do not think we are great

ambassadors for the country and the continent itself. the other thing that i think people assume, and this may be wrong, but they assume the young girl being brought up in benin a0 years ago, is that you would have in steeped in traditional music rather than music from all over the world, the us and the uk, rock ‘n‘ roll, as well as your own music. but from what i understand from your parents were exposing you to all sorts of stuff that wasn't just traditional. yeah, my father played banjo, i don't know why, everybody else played guitar, but that was my dad. he never told us before he passed away in 2008. my mum and dad believed that as their children, we had to lead our own lives and make our own mistakes and make our own choices. my father's favourite phrase is, your weapon is your brain. the ultimate weapon you have is your brain. work on it.

open up to the rest of the world. don't be afraid to get out of this house. they made us understand that the house was going to be an open discussion place, that there would be no taboo subject, with the exception of racism, xenophobia and anti—semitism. my father said he didn't want any hateful people in the house, he didn't have time to that. so as a child i grew up like that. and every single human being on this planet, every language possible, i heard them when i was growing up. so i would come back and think, 0k, what am by going to hear today? and i was really a very curious child. when he was playing you both music from benin, from the traditional storytellers and all that stuff, and then he was playing your records that he brought home byjames brown and otis redding and even jimi hendrix, which did you

actually prefer? both of them. both of them, because as i said before, i was very curious. my nickname in my father's village is when—why—how. if you don't ask questions, you don't know. when the music was too far for me to understand, i would take it and go to the traditional musicians and say — play this and say, you tell me that all the music is the same from you play this. the funny thing is that they can jam with otis redding, james brown, all the music you bring in, they would say, just play it. so you have this incredibly open and creative upbringing in yourfamily, but i am also very aware that at the time, and this is true of many african nations, notjust benin, the country was ruled by a dictatorship. it was nominally communist. as you grow up, singing more and more, developing more professionally, by the time you are a teenager, it was becoming more politically as well socially very difficult for you. absolutely.

you are right about that. before the communist regime, which arrived in1975— 1976, the radio, which when you put on the radio in benin, you could hear everything. all the way from traditional music in benin, conditional music player, cameroon, the ivory coast, to the music of rock ‘n‘ roll from great britain. everything was played. even the french music, classical music, they would play that on the radio. the communist regime arrived and said, ok, from now on we don't want white people's music. we want your very morning, from the morning we started at 5am. until we finish, we just want revolutionary music every day. it changed my life, it collapsed, because i was like... i don't want that! is that when you decided

you had to get out? i decided to get out when they started putting pressure on artists to write music about the communist revolution, and the people in power. and i was like, i'm not doing that. my father always told me, do not use music for any political party because they come and they go. you want to be neutral. so here i am, 16 years old, i have to go and sing, and luckily for me, i was touring around in africa. so every time i was able to escape, not to be that, until one day i was faced with the fact that i would be in the country and i was singing in front of the head of state of west africa. and you feel dirty. you feel absolutely degraded. because they look at you, like, you sing and you me nothing. there are certain people who can give a status in our countries, and they are the ones who perceive you as a prostitute, because you are in front of them singing. at one point i told my father, if this is what singing

is about, i'm out of here. which takes us to you going to paris in your early 20s and then, franco, spending the rest of the light travelling the world, but ace first in paris for many years, then settling in new york city in the us. ijust wonder, if you had not made your adult life in the west, whether you think your music would have been fundamentally different. if you had stayed in africa. it would have been different because of the technology that we don't have. we didn't have that in the 80s or the 90s. now you have studios in benin, and pretty much everywhere in africa, people have a macbook or a pc where they can be music now. the young kids today are really savvy about that because of the internet. they can have sounds here, they can get this. it was very difficult. my first album, believe it or not, that was recorded in 1980, i had to travel, there was a student loan for university that everybody has a right to have, i had to take that loan to come to paris on record my first album that broke my career through.

so i knew i would have to be recording and going and coming back and forth. i was a professional. i wanted my sound to be different. i wanted my music to embody not only the traditional music of my country but all those wonderful artist that i had heard that allowed me to dream big. it is a fantastic cue for people who know angelique kidjo‘s music, and for those you don't, to get a little flavour of what you do. we are going to play a track which is from your 2010 album 0yo which you performed for the bbc recently. let's take a look at this. (traditional beninese music) you are bopping away

and you are making the move as well in my chair. it seems to me there is a lot going on in your music, and there is really this mix of influences. some people listening to albums like that one, like you said, there is a problem here, because it is not authentic. it sounds like it is manufactured from to many sources. what is authentic? shami music that is authentic. i can tell you if it is not. most of the time when people talk about traditional music in africa, it is like, well, it is music that may answer this work plan, traditional music that they were playing, it is completely different from today. we have trouble in africa keeping those instruments alive. most of the young kids don't want to learn to play any traditional instrument. they want to go to the city and make quick money. the way to keep those instruments and that music alive is to make them

available in a way that the world can listen to. therefore, if you put them in modern music, you have to find a way forward to appeal to everybody. that's what i do. is it working? i noticed the other day that on tv africa has 50 million viewers across africa now, but if you switch it on in many cities across the continent, you find that by and large it is a diet of the sort of urban music you might get in the united states as well. it has its own african flavour. it is based, it seems, a lot of that, on hip—hop and rap and urban sounds and beats. is that where african is going? well, the thing is, rap will not exist without african music. soul music would not exist without african music. rock ‘n‘ roll would not exist without, you know, there is no music in the western developed world without african music. it is what happened, the slaves, when they moved them from africa, unwillingly, they came

with their culture. from a different part of africa, the blues. they took the drums away from them when they arrived in america. in cuba, they kept the drums. in brazil, they kept the drums. listen those different types of music and you find africa in the rhythm. i have a lucky enough to be invited to a ceremony in brazil. it was the weirdest experience i have ever encountered. i was sitting down and they were singing in yoruba. i don't speak a word of portuguese, but i could sing with them, because they kept the song. what you tell those people, because you come to africa and you come to brazil and you make classical music that your master used to play, you don't have to do anything else. every time people want to reduce african artists to a cliche. that is the problem we have. you call it a cliche. for some, it may be a sense

of african pride and nationalism in a way. legitimately helpful to one of the greatest african musicians, he always talked about defending african culture against western cultural imperialism. he probably felt that you had been seduced by western cultural imperialism. if you listen to him, you hearjames brown in his music. no white guy can do that. sorry. michaeljackson emulated james brown. it is always the story of going back and forth, exchange of culture. for me, music does not belong to me as an african, it does not belong to any person. what i have learned from traditional musicians, you have to include people in your music.

what you have not done is write highly political lyrics. i do. you once said that lyrics did not matter. i do. i translate my lyrics on the album. the first album i made, the meaning of it, if you look at the logo, see no evil, hear no evil, talk no evil. in france, the country that colonised so many countries, they cannot even take the time to help someone crying in the subway. in africa, i think, what is this? i say hello to my neighbours. in my country, when you come out of your house, you see somebody, you say good morning. you cannot even say that in a civilised and developed country? what is wrong with you people? that is what that album was about. how about more overt politics?

there was something you did that was extraordinary and caused ripples throughout africa. in 2006, you played in zimbabwe, in front of a huge audience, you basically said, robert mugabe and his government, they are monsters. if you live by violence, you will die by violence. that caused a huge stir. you had to leave the country the next day. very quickly. why did you do that? is it your determination to fight against what remains of the african dictatorships and to be somebody who leverages your fame for very political causes? it is beyond that. when i was invited to go play in zimbabwe, it was my first concert and i was very excited to go. because i would meet zimbabwean artists. we would talk, we would do stuff together and i never had a chance to do that. two days before i left, i received an email from an activist

saying to me, you cannot come here, you are a rare voice, the only one we rely on, to speak for us. if something is wrong you are the only person without fear to talk about it. if you come here, it is like you are giving your consent and support to mugabe. i did not sleep that night. he has a point. what was i going to do with this? i reached out to amnesty international, 0xfam, unicef, i asked them what the situation was like. my take on music is that you have to go and play, even in a war zone, to understand the worthlessness of being at war. i would go at the risk of my life. you have to go to see the people who are suffering, under siege. for me, going to zimbabwe, was to give something to them. everybody said to me, you have got to be really careful. you can find a way to say something. when i get there, we have a press conference with the french ambassador at the time who put it together. so we had a press conference, and someone said to the ambassador, the secret service of robert mugabe is here. he turned as white as a piece of paper in your hand and he looked at me and he said, no politics, isaid, 0k. i had to get it out.

i had to say it. when i get there, we have a press conference with the french ambassador at the time who put it together. so we had a press conference, and someone said to the ambassador, the secret service of robert mugabe is here. he turned as white as a piece of paper in your hand and he looked at me and he said, no politics, isaid, 0k. i had to get it out. i had to say it. i cannot sleep if i am mad. i went on stage and said, we cannot blame white people all the time for our problems. when our leaders become butchers, what makes them legitimate? what makes a man a man? i want somebody to tell me, when you are a man, does that mean you have to abuse somebody else, when you are a president, the welfare of your people is your number one priority. when you start killing them,

there is no way you can blame somebody for that. it does not matter why. there was a dead silence when i said that. my husband was in the wings. his eyes were falling out of his head. he was thinking we would end up injail. when you put that way, with your passion, i can understand why you take on dictatorships in africa. and there are still dictatorships in africa. but it seems to me, it is more difficult when you address some of the other issues, you talk a lot about the place of girls and women in african societies, you demand equal education, access to education for females, but there are issues that are very difficult in african societies, for example, the legal rights of women, inheritance, polygamy, another issue, are you prepared to go into those areas and to speak loud and difficult truths to africans? i have done it. yes, and i will continue doing it. until we change, whenever i go, the traditions that are not up to date any more...

we have to have the courage... the courage to abolish female genital mutilation, child marriage, how can a man of 45 years marry a girl of ten years old? for me it is paedophilia. i say that, point blank. people may not like that, but it's the way it is. unless we decide to take on the challenge of changing things on our continent, no—one can make the change for us. people have been trying. you can put billions of dollars in africa, if we are not educated enough to understand the world in which we are living in, the power we have, how we can tell the dictators in our country, go to hell, we do not want you any more? but it is very difficult. benin has a vibrant and a working democracy, but we still see child trafficking, and in education, it is a completely unfair society. girls do not get the same fair shake as boys.

how can people like you fix this? benin is in a little better shape. the government that came in place, what they did, they made tuition free. but what they forgot to do, included in that package, uniforms and books. so they are still working on it. polygamy, there are 40% of women in 2006, who said they still live in polygamous households. i will come to that. let's talk about child trafficking. i was sitting in my hotel room, ijumped out of the bed, i said, hell no. since four years, i have been working with unicef representation in italy, in the government

of my country, to try to fix that. the main problem regarding child trafficking is that more than 40% of the children that are born, they have no birth certificate. it is like they never existed. so here comes a government that says we do not have the means, i said, i will bring the people. we can provide, with unicef from italy, computers at the borders. it is up to the government to make sure those children, those children are registered. to have the picture of the child, the family, so that nobody can come and take the children any more. we are working on it. i met the minister of defence, the minister of the interior, and i told them, the ten days they give people to declare the birth of the child, it does not work for everybody.

some people live on farms. ten days does not work. after ten days, you have to pay. they do not have the money. it has to be free. i want to get a sense of your vision of the future. where are you going to be investing your time and effort? i will be investing my time in the world because africa is connected to the world. i go to africa all the time. but what i do for the girls that i put in school, i bring them proof. i take them there. i don't want it to be anonymous. i want them to give me every cent to go and meet those goals and talk to them. to see the change that we as human beings are bringing to other fellow human beings. we have to leave the politics out of it. we have to create a different world, that is where the future

of africa lies. thank you very much for being on hardtalk. you are welcome. we can go on for ever. tuesday still quite a range of temperatures across the uk, even though there was a lot of cloud in the south—east and east anglia, 20 degrees here, much higher than we normally get at this time of year. 12 degrees in central scotland is about normal. between, this weather front in the south with milder and warm air. fora front in the south with milder and warm air. for a while, the weather

front was active, bringing in heavy rain in northern england and scotland. heading south, it weakens considerably. not much rain left by the time we get to wednesday morning. dan brown drizzly southern england, —— damp. in the north, broken cloud, fresh air in the midlands and northern england. dry by this stage. some showers further north, in scotland, in north—west, some heavy ones first thing in the day. the heaviest of the showers push towards the northern isles, gradually easing in scotland. a nice day, a lot of sunshine in england and wales. proud sticking south of the m4 and the english channel. 19 degrees in london, 13 or 1a degrees through the central belt of scotland. the weather front moving southwards will move northwards on wednesday evening and wednesday

night. it looks like it is moving northwards at this stage, dragging low cloud, mist and fog to england and wales, pockets of drizzle. there are further north in northern ireland and scotland, chilly with a lot of cloud. the fog takes a while to shift. damp weather in much of northern england and wales. sunshine develops in northern ireland and scotland, as we lose those showers. the far north of england too. 13 degrees in the sunshine, a decent day, 17 degrees in the south—east in spite of the cloud. that will clear by the time we get to friday as the weather front moves back south. it will introduce a brighter day across the border. not as mild in southern parts of the uk but some cold air is still to come this weekend. high pressure in the west and south—west, sunwing is about. saturday has some

cloud, drizzly showers, some cold air in the second half of the weekend and given the wind strengths it will feel colder and we entered the weekend with a touch of frost and clear skies... —— and we end the weekend. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: just a few hours until china unveils its new top leadership — will we see a possible successor to president xi? turning on trump — two republican party senators launch scathing attacks on their own president. it's a sad place from my perspective for our nation. and i think the worst of it is going to the whole debasing, if you will, of our nation. i have children and grandchildren to answer to and so mr president, i will not be complicit or silent. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme. after a year of official mourning,

thailand makes final preparations for the king's farewell.