Flashmag April 2020 www.flashmag.net
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Same for the Rhythmic of the song le Bucheron (the Woodsman) of Franklin Boukaka released in 1970 whose beats are almost identical to what will unfold the Funk and Hip Hop of the 80s and 90s. One can easily understand why Soul Makossa will be plagiarized by Michael Jackson on a title of the album Thriller. Nobody can deny that Manu Dibango would have influenced global black music and sometimes even without knowing it himself.
Manu philosophized on this interlude by saying "It had not been done so much in the rules", but a financial agreement was found, and "it revived the song, it became a standard", now taken up by "many people, including Rihanna and most recently Beyoncé". Manu Dibango told Agence France Presse in 2019.
In 1973, given the success of soul Makossa Manu Dibango performed at the Yankee Stadium a venue with a capacity of over 54,000 seats, belonging to the Baseball team New York Yankees, and the Olympia in Paris. He will also perform at the legendary Harlem Apollo where he will return in 2015.
Different contracts led Manu Dibango at the end of 1956 to Belgium, where he played in orchestras, private clubs, and cabarets. It was also in Brussels, where he got to know a painter and model (Marie-Josée called Coco whom he married in 1957),
In Antwerp and Charleroi, Manu jazz becomes pan-Africanized in contact with the Congolese milieu in the atmosphere of the Belgian Congo's independence in 1960. He leads the orchestra of the Brussels club Les Anges Noirs, that Congolese politicians and intellectuals, in full negotiation for the independence of their country, frequent. It was there that he met Grand Kalle, who engaged him in his orchestra. They recorded several discs, which meet great success in Africa (notably Independence Cha Cha in Congo Léopoldville) they went in tour in Congo Léopoldville in August 1961. Dibango and his wife Marie -Josée took in parallel the management of the night club Afro-Negro in Léopoldville, (now Kinshasa) there, Manu launched the twist in 1962 with the title Twist a Léo. In 1963, at the request of his father, he opened his own club in Cameroon, the Tam Tam, which proved to be a financial failure because of the curfew imposed during the civil war which opposed radical independentists to the neocolonial government of Yaoundé from 1958 to 1972.
Manu returned to France in 1965 after this Cameroonian interlude which will make him a little bitter, he will only return sporadically to his native Cameroon the following decade. In 1976 he made a collaboration with the Cameroonian police orchestra in the album Manu 76.
However, the love of his country remained stronger in 1982, Dibango worked on a masterful triple album, Fleurs Musicales du Cameroun, which brought together contemporary and traditional musicians from different ethnic groups of Cameroon.
In 1986 he returned home again and sang Welcome to Cameroon, in the sandy streets of Douala with Sissy Dipoko, and a crowd of children by his side. A hymn to his homeland, another hit that will delight music lovers around the world.
In 1967, Manu Dibango sits at the head of his first big band. He creates and develops his musical style, innovative and urban and discovers the rhythm and blues. He takes part in a series of television programs entitled Pulsations, produced by Gésip Légitimus. He is then put in contact with Dick Rivers and Nino Ferrer, stars of the time who also participated in the programs of Légitimus. He played the Hammond organ for Dick Rivers for six months, then was hired by Nino Ferrer. The latter make him play the organ, then the saxophone when he realizes that he can play this instrument, before giving him the direction of the orchestra.
In Paris, Manu by his stature, became an essential cog in the Afro scene offering a unique showcase to African culture in an often-conservative universe. This altruism that many knew of him, will allow the hatching of many talents throughout his career. For several seasons, at the turn of the 1960s, he directed the orchestra of the program Pulsations, which promoted black music on French television: a primetime opportunity, to which he gave a follow-up with Salut Manu in the 90s in France3 Channel.
In 1969, his afro-jazz album, Saxy Party produced by Mercury (Philips), composed of covers and personal compositions, brought him back to solo success.
In 1970 Manu Dibango arranged the album of twelve songs Franklin Boukaka à Paris. Manu played piano and saxophone behind the plaintive baritone of the Congolese singer who will be assassinated 2 years later in Congo Brazzaville during the failed coup of February 1972 against Marien Ngouabi. Among the album's flagship titles, "Le Bûcheron" remains a hymn that has crossed the ages and tells of the sufferings of an independent Africa in the hands of rapacious politicians.