Makossa

My Top 10 albums memory series continues with an acknowledgement of today's passing of Cameroonian musician, performer, and legend, Manu Dibango and an all-too-short tribute to his music.

There's a rather odd video for this song--"Soul Makossa" by Manu Dibango--on YouTube that features lots of African children dancing, along with some traditional dancers. And that's great. But there's a quite strange scene, too, of an old man trying to, let's say, "dance" with a, let's say, "woman," that may be too much for sensitive viewers.

I don't consider myself that sensitive of a viewer; I want to know what the hell is going on between those two! But, instead, let's just go with the music on this one, which is all you really need.

Believe it or not, this song was a Top 40 hit in the US back in 1973. I remember hearing it on the radio, sometimes the 45 version, sometimes a portion used as a break between programs, even in rural Eastern North Carolina, where I grew up. I don't know how I ever matched the song and the performer given my lack of information back in the day, but somehow I did, and this remains one of my favorite songs of all time.

The instrumentation, the beat, the spoken word, the chorus, the famous mama say mama sah mama kossa--which has been used in other songs, most notably Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music"--for me, they are sublime.

Some consider this song to be the first disco single. Which is great and nothing to be ashamed of because it's joyous, highly danceable, and a party all on its own. I've read from one source that "makossa" means "I will dance" in one of Cameroon's traditional languages. But it's definitely more than a dance song. If you listen to some of the R&B hits of that era and some of the Afropop music of that era, it's as my good friend FouChat once suggested, it's as if they were listening to each other. They were talking to each other, singing to each other, playing for one another, through records and music, across an ocean and through a forced, brutal diaspora. As if to say, we're still here, we're still together, we see you.

A case in point: Various songs by Isaac Hayes and Barry White are also considered the first disco song. Again, maybe they were all listening to each other's records. Who can say?

So this song for represents a love for dance music but also a love for African music, a love for soul music, a love for Africa and travel and curiosity and adventure and exploration. It reminds me of listening to my shortwave radio in my bedroom at night trying to pull in the faintest "tropical band" radio stations from Cameroon, Gabon, Togo, Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, and more. It reminds me that I want to see that part of the world at some point in my life.

I was hoping this would be the year. (I had a trip to Senegal all mapped out and was making plans to take yellow fever and malarial medication. But now I might have to take a raincheck (or a plaguecheck as it were). Nonetheless, I feel it will happen. This year, next year, soon.