Five Essential Tracks by the Late Afro-Jazz Icon Manu Dibango

Last week, 86-year-old Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango died of COVID-19. Dibango’s music shook the world: His discography spans six decades and at least as many genres, with forays into jazz, funk, and hip-hop. Over roughly 60 albums as a singer, songwriter, composer, and instrumentalist, Dibango showed the world a staggering range of African music, but his biggest impact was felt in his homeland. “Everyone I know grew up on him—all generations,” says Jovi, 36, a Cameroonian rapper and producer. Grammy-winning Cameroonian bassist Richard Bona concurs: “We are all Manu’s children.”

Though best known for his 1972 hit “Soul Makossa,” Dibango was an active artist all the way up to his passing. Last year, he appeared on a song called “Ewondo ou Bami” by the young French-Cameroonian musician Tayc. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, he was planning to perform with the acclaimed Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo at a Carnegie Hall concert to mark the 60th anniversary of the independence of 17 African nations. “He was looking forward to the show,” Kidjo tells Pitchfork. “He said, ‘It’s about time we tell a story of independence.’”

Throughout his life, Dibango spoke wisely of the work of the African artist—on the simultaneous importance of geography and the limitations some sought to impose because of it. “When you’re a musician you don’t say to yourself when you get up in the morning, ‘I make African music.’ You say, ‘I want to make music.’ And that’s that,” he told the United Nations in 1991.

Here are five songs Dibango’s contemporaries and those he influenced are revisiting in the wake of his passing.

“Soul Makossa” (1972)

Cameroonian makossa began as a folky dance music style in the 1960s before expanding to include highlife, rumba, and merengue sounds. Then, in 1972, Manu Dibango got ahold of the genre and created his international breakout track, “Soul Makossa.” In the summer of 1973, New York City radio DJ Frankie Crocker put “Soul Makossa” in his regular rotation, helping to make the song a hit in the U.S., peaking at No. 35 on the Hot 100. Today, the song’s interpolation in Michael Jackson’s 1983 smash “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” is its most well-known cultural footprint.

“Manu Dibango is a bit of a musical oddity,” says culture writer Naima Cochrane. “He toured the globe consistently, and collaborated with artists including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Herbie Hancock, and Peter Gabriel, but not many casual music fans know his name. However, almost everyone knows his biggest hit.”

“Indépendance Cha Cha” (1960)

In 1960, Joseph Kabasele, aka Le Grand Kallé, recorded “Indépendance Cha Cha” as an anthem for liberation. Seventeen African countries gained their independence the same year. Angélique Kidjo says Dibango was there when Kabasele wrote the song and that, in some of her last conversations with Dibango earlier this year, he told her, “The music that we give people gives them the strength to continue fighting for freedom.” In the above video, recorded two months ago, Kidjo and Dibango casually rehearse the song at a dining room table.

“Lady” (1994)

“Manu was my great friend and brother,” says Tony Allen, the legendary Nigerian drummer who pioneered Afrobeat with Fela Kuti’s Africa 70 band. “I can’t forget the albums we have done together.” One of those albums was Wakafrika, in which Dibango enlisted a wide cast of guests—including Allen, Sinead O’Connor, King Sunny Adé, and Angélique Kidjo—for songs that span the African diaspora, from Nigerian juju to reggae. Allen played the drums on Dibango’s version of “Lady,” as he did two decades prior for Fela in their original rendition of the song. “Lady” is a declaration of the power, confidence, and rights of African women.

“New-Bell (Hard Pulsation)” (1972)

Like Dibango, artist and producer Jovi was born and raised in Douala, Cameroon. Jovi studied Dibango’s discography as he built his own, learning to blend traditional African instruments and rhythms with hip-hop beats just as Dibango blended indigenous sounds with funk and jazz. “His music was very smooth in its ease and delivery, and at the same time very groovy,” Jovi says. He adds that one of his favorite Dibango cuts is “New-Bell (Hard Pulsation),” a danceable track with high-pitched horns and shaky percussion, named for a busy Douala neighborhood.

“Douala Serenade” (1982)

A tribute to Dibango’s seaside hometown, “Douala Serenade” is a six-and-a-half minute epic that moves from breezy whistling to slap bass to urgent drumming, all tied together with Dibango’s upbeat saxophone. Birds squawks and wave crashes give the song a sense of place and light; feminine chanting gives it a sense of sweetness.

“‘Douala Serenade’ definitely changed my life as an artist,” says Richard Bona. “[Dibango] was a remarkably cultivated gentleman who changed the way many of us experience music. Manu forever, man!”

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork