African jazz legend Manu Dibango, of ‘Soul Makossa’ fame, dead at 86 from coronavirus

Legendary Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango died Tuesday from the coronavirus in France.

The “Soul Makossa” musician was 86. His death was posted on his Facebook page.

The note says the funeral would be a private family event, but suggests a tribute would be scheduled soon. Fans were also encouraged to send condolences to manu@manudibango.net.

Dibango was reportedly hospitalized with COVID-19 in France last week.

Emmanuel N’Djoké Dibango was born in Cameroon in 1933, and relocated to Paris with his family at the age of 15.

It was there he began to play the saxophone and piano, and by the early 1950s, he performed professionally throughout the City of Lights, later becoming a staple on the European jazz circuit.

His recording career began in 1968, with a self-titled album, and in 1972, during a trip to New York, he wrote and recorded the song that would make him famous.

“Soul Makossa,” which would later be sampled by Michael Jackson, Kanye West, Will Smith, Jay-Z and Rihanna, among other artists, became a Top 20 R&B hit on the Billboard charts, and a staple on black radio stations across the country.

The song was named after makossa, a Cameroonian style of music, and its lyrics were in the Douala language of Cameroon.

Originally just a B-side, the track became a New York City dance club hit when famed disco DJ David Mancuso reportedly found it in a West Indian record shop in Brooklyn.

According to The Guardian, the song was soon so in demand, that cover versions flooded the market. Nine different versions of “Soul Makossa” ended up on the Billboard chart in 1973.

The song garnered two Grammy nominations for Best R&B Instrumental Composition and Best R&B Instrumental Performance, respectively.

Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones famously sampled the song’s central refrain — “Ma-mako, ma-ma-sa, mako-mako ssa” — on 1982’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and failed to initially credit Dibango, who ended up suing The King of Pop. Rolling Stone reports that the pair eventually settled out of court.

Dibango went on to tour widely off the back of the track’s success, and collaborated with Hugh Masekela, Fela Kuti, Peter Gabriel, Angélique Kidjo, Youssou N’Dour, Herbie Hancock, among others.

Upon learning of his passing, Kidjo took to social media to pay her respects.

“You’re the original giant of African music and a beautiful human being,” the Grammy-winning Béninois singer wrote on Twitter, alongside a video of the two rehearsing in Paris two months ago.

In a 2018 interview, Dibango talked about what attracted him to the saxophone.

“Simply: it’s sexy,” he told Qwest TV. “I preferred it to the clarinet. Even if I had never played it, I would have liked it anyway.”