Manu Dibango ~ Soul Makossa 1972 Funky Purrfection Version

Influential disco DJ David Mancuso was born in 1944 and was then given up to a Catholic orphanage in Utica, New York. He moved to NYC in 1965 and shared his love of music with others in an illegal loft apartment by having invitation only parties of 100 patrons or so. In 1970 he formalized these parties and ran them from a DJ booth that looked like an old Wurlitzer jukebox. His innate talent for creating hot peaks of music and then ebbing to some downtempo tunes and then building the energy up again with all kinds of music he would dig up in the local record stores. He found "Soul Makossa" by Manu Dibango in a local West Indian record shop and the slinky and mesmerizing rhythms fit right into his style. The shop only had a few copies and as soon as the clubbers heard it, bought up the last copies and then everyone was in this mad rush to find the song. As a result, there was a flood of covers by Afrique, The Gaytones, The Mighty Tomcats, Babatunde Olatunji, the Nairobi Afro Band, Simon Kenyatta, the Ventures and All Directions. Atlantic Records got around to licensing "Soul Makossa" but it was too late as the ersatz copies of the song were readily available and the song peaked at #35 on the pop charts. Manu Dibango was born December 12, 1933 in Cameroon. He joined African Jazz band and after 1966 went solo and collaborated with many different artists until he recorded "Soul Makossa" in 1972. The utterly hypnotizing funky bass line joined with his energetic sax playing was underlined with the Makossa chant, (ma ma ko ma ma sa ma ma makossa) made this one a club favorite, but came two years too early to be rated on the Billboard Disco chart which began in November of 1974. Everyone was trying to co-opt the groove, and Michael Jackson did the best using a chant based on "Soul Makossa" for "Wanna Be Startin' Something". Rihanna also used the groove on her "Don't Stop The Music" in 2007, after asking Jackson to use the chant from "Wanna Be Startin' Something". In 2009 Dibango sued both of them for copyright infrigement and Jackson immediately retreated and settled with Dibango. He was less successful with Rihanna as he received no financial recompense but did get his name put on the song as a writer and now he gets royalties for the sale of the Rihanna song in France.