Makossa

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Music of Cameroon: Subjects
Makossa Bikutsi
Mvet Assiko
Nganja Bend-skin
New rumba Bantowbol
Timeline and Samples
Francophone Africa
Algeria - Burkina Faso - Burundi - Cameroon - Central African Rep. - Comoros - Congo-Brazzaville - Congo-Kinsasha - Côte d'Ivoire - Djibouti - Madagascar - Mali - Mauritius - Morocco - Rwanda - Senegal - Seychelles - Togo - Tunisia

Makossa is a type of music which is most popular in urban areas in Cameroon. It is similar to soukous, except it includes strong bass rhythm and a prominent horn section. It originated from a type of Duala dance called kossa, with significant influences from jazz, ambasse bey, Latin music, highlife and rhumba. While the makossa style began in the 1950's, the first recordings were not seen until a decade later. Artists such as Eboa Lotin, Misse Ngoh and especially Manu Dibango popularized the style outside of Cameroon in the later 1960s.

[edit] Makossa Artists

The two musicians largely credited with modernising makossa are Manu Dibango and Emmanuel Nelle Eyoum. Eyoum start using the term 'kossa, kossa' in his songs with his group "Los Calvinos". But it was Emmanuel 'Manu' Dibango which popularised it to the world with his song "Soul Makossa" which came out in the early '70s with the famous chant 'mamase mamasa mamakossa', which was later used by Michael Jackson in "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'".

[edit] External links

Genres of African popular music

Afrobeat | Apala | Benga | Bikutsi | Highlife | Isicathamiya | Jùjú | Kwaito | Kwela | Makossa | Mbalax | Mbaqanga | Mbube | Morna | Palm-wine | Raï | Rumba | Soukous/Congo/Lingala | Taarab

In other languages