In 2006, at a concert in Zimbabwe, Africa's "premier diva", aged 50, launched an attack on Mugabe: "I can't understand someone who is burning his own country and abducting his own people. If you live by violence, you die by violence." The audience prevented her being pulled of the stage and she managed to flee.
In Benin, where Kidjo was brought up, she faced opposition because singers were not seen as respectable. But more serious problems arrived in the 1980s when she refused to praise the communist regime in her work. She fled to Paris and was unable to speak to her parents on the phone for fear of putting them in danger. Today she is wildly popular – gathering Grammy awards, A-list collaborators such as Alicia Keys, and playing at events including Nobel peace prize ceremonies – but she still pens political songs, is a UN goodwill ambassador, supports groups such as Oxfam, and Unicef and has a foundation to improve access to education for African girls.