Hall of Fame · Artists
Voices that carried Africa's song and image to the world.
6 inductees honoured under Artists.
Benin
Music & Activism
Angélique Kidjo
b. 1960
Singer-songwriter and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Winner of five Grammy Awards, she has released more than a dozen albums blending West African traditions with funk, jazz and Latin music; her Batonga Foundation has built secondary schools for girls across Benin.
Nigeria
Music & Resistance
Fela Kuti
1938 – 1997
Musician, composer and political activist. Invented Afrobeat — a fusion of Yoruba highlife, jazz and funk — and used his band Africa 70 and later Egypt 80 to indict military corruption and human-rights abuses in Nigeria, surviving repeated government attacks on his person and his Kalakuta Republic commune.
South Africa
Jazz & Resistance
Hugh Masekela
1939 – 2018
Trumpeter, composer and singer. His 1968 hit Grazing in the Grass topped the US pop charts; spent 30 years in exile using his music to rally international opposition to apartheid, and returned to South Africa in 1990 to help rebuild its cultural life. Opened the 2010 FIFA World Cup ceremony in Soweto.
South Africa
Music & Witness
Miriam Makeba
1932 – 2008
Singer known as Mama Africa. Won the Grammy for Best Folk Recording in 1966 with Harry Belafonte for An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba, testified against apartheid before the United Nations in 1963 — for which her South African citizenship was revoked — and carried African music to a global audience.
Senegal
Cinema & Literature
Ousmane Sembène
1923 – 2007
Novelist and filmmaker known as the father of African cinema. Wrote God's Bits of Wood and Black Docker before turning to film; his 1966 short Borom Sarret was the first film made by a sub-Saharan African director, and he spent his career creating African stories for African audiences.
Senegal
Music & Public Life
Youssou N'Dour
b. 1959
Singer, songwriter and statesman. Pioneered mbalax — a fusion of Wolof sabar drumming with Cuban and jazz traditions — collaborated with Peter Gabriel on the global hit 7 Seconds, won the Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album in 2005 for Egypt, and served as Senegal's Minister of Tourism and Culture (2012–13).