PARIS (Reuters) – World-famous singer and saxophonist Manu Dibango has died from a coronavirus infection at the age of 86 in France, his management team said on Tuesday.
FILE PHOTO: Camoroonese musician Manu Dibango plays his saxaphone during French designer Sorbier’s Spring/Summer 2005 high fashion collection in Paris, January 26, 2005./File Photo
“It is with deep sadness that we announce the loss of Manu Dibango, our Papy Groove, who passed away on March 24, 2020, at 86 years old, further to Covid 19,” read a statement on Dibango’s Facebook page.
Cameroon-born Dibango arrived in France in the early 1950s and studied jazz and saxophone in the northern city of Reims, where he started playing in clubs, according to a biography on his Facebook page.
Dibango died early Tuesday morning in a hospital in the Paris region, Thierry Durepaire, a member of the artist’s management team, told Reuters.
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
In the early 1960s, his style of playing took on more African rhythms as he collaborated with Brussels-based musicians from Congo and he began touring in Africa, developing his trademark pumping saxophone rhythms.
“Sax is sexy. I play other instruments too, but my voice sounds best through a saxophone,” Dibango – who also played piano, organ and vibraphone – told French music programme Basique last year.
In the late 1960s, Dibango started his own band, played with a string of French musicians and in 1972 he had a major hit with “Soul Makossa”, a song that brought him international success and was reinterpreted by many other artists.
In 2009, Dibango filed a lawsuit in a Paris court against the producers of Michael Jackson for using the “Mamase, mamasa, makossa” riff from Soul Makossa. The riff became world-famous through Jackson’s hit “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”. The case was later settled out of court.
In an interview in 2019, Dibango said the song was now there for all to use. “It has moved beyond me. It is good in a way, once a song becomes a standard, it no longer belongs to the composer but to the person who interprets it,” he said.
On Dibango’s 1992 album Wakafrika, produced in France, he reinterpreted a string of African hits and played with top African stars including Youssou N’dour, King Sunny Adé, Salif Keïta, Angélique Kidjo and Papa Wemba, as well as British rock singers Peter Gabriel and Sinéad O’Connor.
In 2010, Dibango received the “legion d’honneur” medal in his adopted country France. He was diagnosed with a coronavirus infection earlier this month.
Last year, on the sidelines of a tour celebrating 60 years on stage, he said jazz music needed to have a danceable beat .
“We are the leg specialists, things have to move, that is how I see music,” he said.
Additional reporting by Bate Felix; Writing by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky