Biography
Emmanuel N'Djoké "Manu" Dibango (1933 –2020) was a Cameroonian musician and songwriter who played saxophone and vibraphone. He developed a musical style that combined jazz, funk and traditional Cameroonian music.
br<> He was born in Douala, Cameroon on December 12, 1933. His father was a civil servant belonging to the Yabassi ethnic group, his mother was a fashion designer and had her own small business, her ethnic group was Douala. Dibango had a half-brother from his father's previous marriage who was four years oldere. In childhood. As a child he was going to a Protestant church every night for religious education; it was his chance to learn and play music.
In 1941, after being educated at his village school, Dibango was admitted to a colonial school near his home, where he learned French. In 1949, at the age of 15, he was sent to college in Saint-Calais, France. After that he attended the lycée de Chartres where he studied piano and music.
Dibango became a member of the Congolese rumba group 'African Jazz" and collaborated with many other musicians during his career. He gained many fans in both France and the UK with a disco hit called 'Big Blow', originally released in 1976. In 1998, he recorded his major album 'Cub Africa' with Cuban artist Eliades Ochoa. Among his biggest hits was "Soul Makossa", where the term "makossa" refers to a style of Cameroonian urban music and means "to dance" in the Duala language.
On March 24, 2020, Dibango died of COVID-19 in Melun near Paris