Hey, Manu!

>> A rapid-fire chat with Afro-Soul superstar Manu Dibango

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Hey, Manu! What are you, anyway? A jazz musician, a soul musician, or a traditional African musician?

"I am a musician of African origin, from Cameroon specifically, but I'm what I consider a musical generalist, rather than a specialist. That's my definition. Jazz is part of that, but I'm a generalist."

Hey, Manu! Tell us how you felt when your 1972 song "Soul Makossa" became the first international megahit out of Africa!

"I was surprised, because you never expect these things when you start. Whether it falls on my back or someone else's, it's the same thing. Such circumstances are a little like a hammer hitting you on the head. One has to react. I was already 40 years old at the time, in the business a long time. So I didn't let it go to my head."

Hey, Manu! Tell us about playing at the famous Ali/Foreman fight in Kinshasa, Zaire... the "Rumble in the Jungle!"

"That was one of those things where you really had to be there, as they say. A huge event happening on African soil, with two African Americans coming back to their ancestral land decades later. On top of that, they brought all the Western media with them. So it was a pretty extraordinary event. It was like a fairy tale, especially at that time. Everyone in Africa was still dreaming of the future, there was still money around, Don King was just starting his career. And the fiction continued, with one black American succeeding in convincing the population that the other was the bad black!"

Hey, Manu! Tell us about recording Gone Clear with Sly and Robbie in Jamaica in 1979!

"Actually, I just finished recording on their new album! That plugs the bottle, doesn't it! Gone Clear was really interesting, because it happened on the island where reggae was born, and with the specialists, too. Geoffrey Chung was the technician, it was recorded at Dynamic Sound, Bob Marley was still alive... it was a big moment."

Hey, Manu! Tell us about working with Herbie Hancock and Bill Laswell on Electric Africa in 1985!

"That was a big moment, too! It was my discovery of electronic music, the start of the cybernetic world. It was very exciting, because Laswell, he's very introverted, you know. Very reserved. He did the record without any complaints, which is interesting. On one of the tracks we did, Jaco Pastorius plays a piece, this was right at the end of his life. It was exciting to meet him."

Hey, Manu! Tell us about hanging with French popster Nino Ferrer in the '60s!

"I was playing in clubs in Paris, like all musicians at the time. There were plenty of clubs, and I was at La Bohème on Montparnasse. I had an orchestra that didn't really have a definite style, but definitely had a groove. You could call it 'groove music.' You asked about my style before? There's your answer.

"I had my own orchestra called Leleoso. We opened for Nino Ferrer at a concert in a Parisian suburb, and he needed an organist because his had to go into the studio. I said I was interested. I wasn't specifically an organist, but I could play piano. I said yes, without believing that one day he would actually call me. I was surprised when he did, because I was well-known in Africa but not in France. When I joined his band I was the keyboard player, but three months later he discovered that I was a saxophone player. Three months after that I was the leader of his band. He opened a lot of horizons for me."

Hey, Manu! In 1990, you released the album Polysonik with rapper MC Mello. What are your thoughts on hip hop?

"To me, music is colours. So, hip hop is a colour, and for all good musicians it has something to offer. The proof is that I did it in 1989, before hip hop's wave of success, because I consider rap to have existed for a long time. Look at the Last Poets at the end of the '60s. Even before that there was scat, and the preachers in the churches, that's sort of like rap as well. Even in gospel, you could say there's an element of rap. It's a musically-delivered text. What I admire about rap is how much work it takes. It's poetry, and it's fast. But that's the Nintendo generation!"

Hey, Manu! In 1994 you did the album "Wakafrica," a superstar affair with everybody in African music on board--Salif Keita, Youssou N'dour, King Sunny Adé, Touré Kounda...

"Almost everybody! Hugh Masakela wasn't there, neither was Miriam Makeba. But everybody else was there. For me it was difficult, I was already 60 years old. It was getting painful and difficult for me to travel, to do a musical safari across Africa, from Senegal to Cape Town. It was an artist's dream, though. It was as if you decided to take a musical journey across Canada. And I had that chance. Now, naturally, between our dreams and reality, we can never be satisfied. But I'm glad we had this opportunity, nonetheless."

Hey, Manu! What are you up to these days?

"I've just finished a record that should be out by the time I get to Montreal. It's a record of traditional Cuban son, with the Quartetto Patria. We recorded it two years ago and then put it aside. I was passing through Paris at the time and took advantage of that fact to meet them, we had fun playing together for some record labels, we recorded it, let it sit and now we're releasing it. It's called Cubafrica. Because it's the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, I felt it would be appropriate to take a trip with these Cubans, no?"

With guests Takadja at Metropolis, Saturday, June 20 at 9pm, $26.50.