Angélique Kidjo is on a roll. For years, she has been an entertaining, reliable fixture on the world-music scene, a powerful singer famed for mixing African material, including songs by her heroine Miriam Makeba, with old favourites by anyone from Bob Marley to Sam Cooke. But it’s her most recent albums that have demonstrated the scope of her ambition. First came her original reinterpretation of Talking Heads’ 1980 album Remain in Light, in which she advanced the African influences in their music. Now she applies the same technique to the songs of Celia Cruz, the queen of salsa. This is not just an album of covers but an inventive reinterpretation.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angelique Kidjo: Celia album artwork

Cruz, who died in 2003, became a massive star in the US after refusing to return to Cuba when Fidel Castro took power. But Kidjo’s album is a reminder of Cruz’s African roots, born in a poor black neighbourhood of Havana: the salsa hits are reworked with Afrobeat hero Tony Allen on drums, joined by the west African Gangbé Brass Band, Britain’s Sons of Kemet and American Meshell Ndegeocello on bass.

The set opens with a new version of Cruz’s cheerful 1975 hit Cucala, with guitar and percussion dominating in place of brass. A later Cruz hit, La Vida Es Un Carnaval is given an edgy, Ethiopian-inspired treatment, while the rapid-fire Quimbara is treated to an Afrobeat setting, with Allen in subtle form. Kidjo’s singing is powerful and assured throughout, from the upbeat revamp of Bemba Colorá to the brooding, chanting echoes of Santería, the Afro-Cuban religion, on Elegua and Yemaya, a tribute to the orisha (spirit) of motherhood and ruler of the seas, now set to an African juju beat. Magnificent.

• Celia is released on 19 April

Also out this month

Minyo Crusaders’ Echoes of Japan is a delightfully quirky album of min’yō folk songs, traditionally performed by fishermen, coal miners or sumo wrestlers, reimagined in settings that range from Afrobeat and reggae to an unexpectedly charming bolero. From Niger, Mdou Moctar enlivens the overcrowded desert-blues-rock scene with Ilana, an exuberant, spontaneous-sounding set in which he matches Saharan styles against searing guitar work. And from Holland, Altin Gün are no-nonsense psychedelic folk-rockers effectively reworking Turkish songs, albeit with a sense of restraint that they will, hopefully, jettison live.

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