Happy Birthday Manu!

'Makossa Man' Turns 70

Paris 

12/12/2003 - 

Cameroonian sax star Manu Dibango is revered all the way from Dakar and Douala to Paris as a founding father of modern African music. This month a new compilation, Africadelic, pays tribute to his genius, featuring rare versions and outtakes of his work. Meanwhile, Makossa Man, who was honoured at "Africa Fête" in Dakar last week, prepares to play two mega-concerts in his homeland, in Douala and Yaounde. RFI/Musique looks back over his extraordinary career to date:

Dakar

Music fans were out in force in Dakar last week paying tribute to Manu Dibango at the 25th edition of the "Africa Fête." It was a special occasion on more than one count. As Mamadou Konte, one of the organisers, pointed out "It's not just that Manu's here celebrating his 70th birthday in the Senegalese capital. Manu and I actually launched 'Africa Fête' together in Paris in '78. He's a living legend of African music, an absolute reference and role model for the youth of today." Following the festival an international organisation of African musicians is to be set up. "The organisation will officially be set up some time in December because we wanted the launch to coincide with Manu's 70th birthday," says Youssou N’Dour, "This is our present to him!" For Senegalese singer Didier Awadi, the most recent winner of RFI's World Music Award, there's no doubt about it, Manu Dibango is the founding father of African music. "We all grew up listening to 'Soul Makossa,'" Awadi says, "I think it's essential to pay tribute to him. For us, Manu Dibango always represented an image of hope and proved that a musician could be clean-living and still be a star."

Cameroon Awaits The Return of Its Prodigal Son

Emmanuel N'Djoké Dibango was born on December 12, 1933, in Douala, Cameroon. Seventy years on, the country prepares to honour one of its most famous sons with two mega-concerts in the capital, Yaounde (12 December) and his hometown, Douala (13 December). Dibango and his famous backing band, the Makossa Gang will take to the stage in the capital at the "Palais des Congrès." When he appears in his hometown, "Makossa Man" will perform at Mbappé Leppé stadium alongside Ray Lema (a friend and collaborator of thirty years' standing with whom he is currently working on a new album), Douleur and the group Macase (who both walked off with trophies at the Kora Awards in Johannesburg last weekend). The only Dibango 'acolyte' missing for the occasion is Cameroonian star, Richard Bona. "Manu's our Tyrannosaurus Rex, the last great musical survivor the country has now that we've lost Francis Bebey and Eboa Lotin. Manu's our landmark now." Bona, who is currently based in New York, admits to having benefited from the Dibango aura when attempting to break onto the music scene across the Atlantic. "The name Manu Dibango definitely opens doors in the New York music world. In fact, people look on me as a sort of spiritual son of Dibango. Thirty years on everyone still remembers Soul Makossa. That's the track that really established Manu's identity and his musical vision."

The Rivers Connection

Dibango's first 'boss' when he arrived in France in the mid-60s was French rocker Dick Rivers. "I first heard about Manu through friends of mine," Rivers says, "They were all talking about this black musician and I wanted to check him out for myself. Manu was based in Belgium at that point playing Congolese music and I took him on in my group as a pianist and saxophonist. We were constantly on the road at that point, touring non-stop. That was when rock’n’roll was still all the rage. Manu had hair at that point, too – he wasn't this imposing giant with the shaved head we all know today! The music he was into playing back then was rhythm’n'blues, you know, Otis Reding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown and stuff. That was in the days when everyone had big brass sections on stage and Manu was up there going wild on sax. He's come a long way since then! He's a huge international star these days. And that's rare amongst French artists because we're confronted with this obstacle called a language barrier. Manu doesn't have that problem because he can just get on and do his instrumental stuff and take his Afro-jazz-pop mix to the four corners of the world. He's a totally extraordinary guy, a guy who's completely ageless. He always seems much younger than he is because he's got this endless supply of energy!"

Bokilo, The Loyal Guitarist

One of Dibango's most loyal collaborators over the years has been Congolese guitarist, Bokilo Jerry Malekani, who was first introduced to Makossa Man in 1965 by Kabasélé (while the latter was still a member of Rico Jazz). Over the last 38 years Bokilo has accompanied Manu in all his musical adventures, ranging from the concerts he gave this summer with a philharmonic orchestra in the Netherlands to a recent series of shows with Bantu violinists in the U.K. "Manu's a real brother to me," says Bokilo, "We work together like family. But after forty years on the road I think it got to a point where we both felt the need to take a break. You get a bit worn out being solicited on all sides. This is a real 'troubadours' profession, especially with someone like Manu who loves meeting and working with different people. It's non-stop, you're always pushing on to the next adventure!"

Soul Makossa

Thirty years ago now Soul Makossa pounded across the Atlantic and became the first African hit to take the U.S. by storm. Since then the famous refrain, "Mamako, Mamasa, Mamakossa" has been 'sampled' by everyone from Michael Jackson and the group Cameo to Latin lovely Jennifer Lopez. According to Jim Miller, editor of the American music bible Rolling Stone in the 1970s, Dibango's hit went down in music history as the harbinger of disco. "During the summer of '73 this completely wild instrumental took the American airwaves by storm," says Miller, "It was Soul Makossa, a track by a certain Manu Dibango, an African musician living in Paris. Dibango's frenetic sax-playing pumping out over a thumping bass rhythm conjured up visions of a wild orgy in the middle of the jungle – and that impression was further reinforced by the fact there was all this moaning and grunting going on! Although Soul Makossa originally came out as a French import and was the kind of record people generally threw on bonfires in South Carolina, it went on to become one of the dancefloor favourites in discos up and down the country. And after Atlantic Records bought the rights the single became a huge hit on the mainstream, too."

Dibango, the Afro-Parisian Sage

Remy Kolpa Kopoul, a former journalist on French newspaper Libération, who now works for Paris-based station Radio Nova, cites Makossa Man as the precursor of world music. "He was around before anyone even invented the term 'sono mondiale!'" says Kopoul, "Dibango was the first African musician to score a hit with a track that ventured outside the African 'community' at a time when that was absolutely the channel you had to go through to get anywhere. Dibango tended to be put in the soul/jazz category, but at the same time he managed to whip Soul Makossa up with all kinds of different musical flavours like rumba and salsa… When world music arrived on the scene in the 80s, Manu already had a head start on the others. When all these other musicians emerged sporting dreadlocks Manu had already moved on to the shaved head look. And that gave him real stature! He managed to become political by standing back from it all, a bit like a justice of the peace really. He stuck to his principles, refusing to return to his home country for many years, not because he didn't want to go back, but because he didn't want to be used as an alibi. Here on the African music scene he's held in great respect as a sort of village elder. He's always been a wise old sage."

Manu Dibango Africadélic (Mercury/Universal Music) 2003

Pierre  René-Worms

Translation : Julie  Street