Angelique Kidjo is a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. She has been a UNICEF goodwill ambassador since 2002. The opinions in this article belong to the author.

(CNN) I was a very lucky girl. I grew up in Benin, West Africa, in the middle of a big family, filled with love.

We were 10 children: seven boys and three girls. Even though we were not rich -- my dad worked at the post office -- our life was full of joy.

As a child, I always felt a deep sense of security: The neighbors were friendly, and they would look out for us when we were out roaming the streets of Cotonou, our economic capital. Around that time, I started singing on stage in my mother's theater troupe. I was 6, and everyone thought it was cute.

Then, everything changed when puberty kicked in. I suddenly felt that my fame as a singer was now a curse. Other kids in the streets would call me a prostitute and spat at me.

One day, after such an episode, I came back home, running and crying. When my grandmother asked me what was wrong, I said that I wanted to stop singing. She told me, "You cannot be loved by everybody, and never let anyone define who you are and who you want to be."

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