MANU DIBANGO

In the 70ies he had his first and biggest hit "Soul Makossa" which made him sell millions of records worldwide. Manu started to play a key role in the musical exchange between Africa, Europe and the USA. While "Soul Makossa" only marked the beginning of an exciting career which now lasts over half a century. Manu kept being inventual and producing new music all the time. At his early eighties, he is still full of energy and a fantatsic live musician who blows his saxophone with the groove of his body & soul.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Who knows ? If he had not been born under the star sign of Sagittarius, he might never have had the temperament of a nomad and the taste for adventure.. Having been sent to Europe at the age of 15, he would have come back an academic success. As it was, he was affected by musical grace in the very first years in the protestant temple. Little Manu on the road between Paris and Brussels, thanks to the masters he discovers (Armstrong, Ellington, Young, Parker…), wandering in places where jazz rips the nights apart voluptuously, a musician’s soul was being formed. Then the famous singer Kabasele arrived in Brussels from Zaïre (Democratic State of Congo), and proposes he join their group “African Jazz” to play Congolese music ; Manu takes up the challenge. He
features in around forty records, then goes on tour near Kinshasa. This was to be a decisive step. An idea was gradually taking shape during his life as a well-known musician : to invent a patchwork made up of rich and spirited conversations between jazz and African styles of music. Being of an eclectic mind, listening to the sounds of his era – in 1972 Soul Makossa was the first “French” hit to conquer the States – Manu takes secret pleasure in breaking the musical chapels, building bridges between continents and throwing passageways between tradition and the sounds of future.