Featuring a selection of Kidjo originals and covers including the Curtis Mayfield classic ‘Move On Up’, Spirit Rising is the great Beninoise singer's first ever live album. Filmed at the WGBH Calderwood Studio in Boston, the concert includes special guests from across the musical spectrum including Josh Groban, Branford Marsalis, and dancers from the triple Tony Award-winning Broadway show Fela! An explosive marriage of West African and salsa rhythms, and featuring the additional textural weight of the Kuumba Singers, album opener ‘Tumba’ bursts out of the speakers and doesn't let down its propulsive energy levels for a second, helped along by Magatte Sow's crowd-pleasing percussion breakdown. Prefacing another self-penned song, ‘Agolo’, with an exhortation to “stand up and dance, no more sitting down” (resistance was surely futile), other highlights include an utterly transformed ‘Gimme Shelter’ – one of two standout tracks featuring Kidjo's great friend, Dianne Reeves – and the über funky cross rhythms of ‘Batonga’. They said it could never be done, but Spirit Rising somehow manages to capture the joyousness and energising spirit of a Kidjo live performance.