[13] She grew up listening to Yoruba and Beninese traditional music, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, James Brown, Manu Dibango, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti, Stevie Wonder, Osibisa and Santana.

Many guests appear on the album including Josh Groban, Carlos Santana, Alicia Keys, Joss Stone, Peter Gabriel, Amadou and Mariam, Ziggy Marley and Branford Marsalis.

Dianne Reeves appears on Aretha Franklin's "Baby I Love You", Bono and John Legend on Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up", for which Kidjo recorded a video[22] with the Fela!

It features a collection of songs from her entire career played live in Boston with special guests Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend, Dianne Reeves, Branford Marsalis, Christian McBride and Josh Groban.

Guest musicians on the album include Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend, Nigerian folk singer Aṣa on "Eva", pianist Dr. John on "Kulumbu"; the Kronos Quartet and the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra.

[29] Released on June 8, 2018, Kidjo partnered with producer Jeff Bhasker (Rihanna, Kanye West, Harry Styles, Bruno Mars, Drake, Jay-Z) to create Remain in Light.

With her version of Remain in Light, Kidjo wanted to celebrate the music of Talking Heads and Brian Eno with her own vocals, as well as percussion, horn orchestrations, and select lyrics performed in languages from her home country.

Remain in Light features appearances by Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Blood Orange, Tony Allen, Antibalas Horns, Kidjo's longtime guitarist Dominic James, and percussionist Magatte Sow.

Of the song "Quimbara", New York Times critic Jon Pareles says: "Backed by Michelle Ndegeocello on bass, the Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen on drums, Dominic James on guitars and the Gangbe Brass Band, Kidjo reconnects the salsa original to West Africa, layering the song with a tumbling six-beat rhythm, a brass-band undertow and a tangle of scurrying guitar lines while she belts with enough grit to rival Cruz herself.

Reports on her visits can be found on the UNICEF site: Benin, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Syria, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Haiti.

Along with Mary Louise Cohen[43] and John R. Phillips,[44] Kidjo founded The Batonga Foundation, which empowers some of the most vulnerable and hardest-to-reach young women and girls in Benin with the knowledge and skills they need to be agents of change in their own lives and communities.

Kidjo has recorded a video based on her song "Agolo" and on the images of Yann Arthus-Bertrand for the United Nations SEAL THE DEAL Campaign to prepare for the Copenhagen Climate Change summit.

In September 2012, she was featured in a campaign called "30 Songs/30 Days" to support Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a multi-platform media project inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book.

[54] On September 25, 2015, she sang Afirika at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in support of the launch of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development along with Shakira after a speech by Pope Francis and before Malala.

[citation needed] In 2015 and 2016, under the guidance of the intentional design team at Population Council, Batonga began to shift away from the scholarship model and formal education initiatives that tended to leave behind society's most vulnerable.

Today, Batonga focuses primarily on providing girls with safe spaces and mentors, equipping them with life and financial literacy skills, and helping them start small businesses.

On November 11, 2018, Kidjo sang Bella Bellow's song "Blewu" under the Arc De Triomphe of Paris in front of 70 heads of state and a television audience of millions to pay tribute to the fallen African soldiers of the war.

Kidjo appeared in the theatrical performance of Storie fantastiche dal delta del Niger by Raffaele Curi [it] for the Alda Fendi Experimenti Foundation in Rome in April 2009.

On June 10, 2010, she was part of the Official Kick-Off Celebration Concert of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, along with John Legend, Hugh Masekela, Shakira, Alicia Keys, Juanes and Black Eyed Peas.

On August 30, 2010, Kidjo sang at the 30th Anniversary celebration of Solidarnosc in the Polish city of Gdańsk produced by Bob Wilson and Hal Willner featuring Philip Glass, Marianne Faithfull, Rufus Wainwright and Macy Gray.

The sold-out concert featured special guests Youssou N'Dour, Omara Portuondo, Dianne Reeves and guitarist Romero Lubambo and told the story of the African roots of the music of the diaspora.

On October 1, 2011, she created a special concert based on Beninese traditional songs with guest guitarist Lionel Loueke for the "Heroic Africans" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

On December 10, 2011, Kidjo sang "Malaika" in Oslo at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman.

[64] On April 30, 2012, Kidjo was part of the International Jazz Day organized by UNESCO at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York City, with Herbie Hancock, Terrence Blanchard, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Tony Bennett, Shaka Khan, Stevie Wonder, Hugh Masekela and many others.

On July 21, 2012, Kidjo performed with Baaba Maal, Hugh Masekela and King Sunny Ade on the African stage of the BT River of Music Festival organized for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The Concert was organized by the Syracuse University and featured also Dave Matthews, Swizz Beatz, Natasha Bedingfield, David Crosby, Counting Crows, Roberta Flack, Nelly Furtado, A. R. Rahman.

On December 6, 2012, Kidjo joined the Alicia Keys's Keep A Child Alive Black Ball in Harlem at the Apollo Theatre along with Jennifer Hudson, Bonnie Raitt and Brittany Howard.

[42] October 3, 2015, saw the French sold out premiere of IFÉ, Three Yoruba Songs, Kidjo's collaboration with Philip Glass at the Philharmonie de Paris with the Orchestre Lamoureux conducted by Gast Waltzing.

[67][68] On November 5, 2015, the David Lynch Foundation organised another benefit concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall named "Change Begins Within" to promote transcendental meditation for stress control.

[69] On July 10, 2016, Kidjo created the premiere of her "African Women All-Stars" concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival with special guests Aṣa, Dobet Gnaore, Lura and the Trio Teriba from Benin.