№ 26 · CONTROVERSY
The Soul Makossa Borrowing
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' / Manu Dibango settlement, 1982 & 2009
MICHAEL JACKSON
The King of Pop
★ RARE
← MICHAEL JACKSON
CARD N° 26 · CONTROVERSY · ★ RARE
The Soul Makossa Borrowing
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' / Manu Dibango settlement, 1982 & 2009
№ 26 CONTROVERSY
The Soul Makossa Borrowing
The Swahili chant that closes Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' — 'Mama-se mama-sa mama-coo-sa' — was lifted from Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango's 1972 track Soul Makossa. Dibango sued. Michael settled. Then Rihanna sampled it 25 years later — and Dibango sued again.
▶ THE MOMENT
Manu Dibango — Soul Makossa (1972)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pZcWyzQ7zk
MICHAEL JACKSON · B·SIDE · VOL.I
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THE FACT
The Swahili chant that closes Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' — 'Mama-se mama-sa mama-coo-sa' — was lifted from Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango's 1972 track Soul Makossa. Dibango sued. Michael settled. Then Rihanna sampled it 25 years later — and Dibango sued again.
WHAT MOST DON'T KNOW
Manu Dibango's Soul Makossa was the first disco track to chart in America (Atlantic Records picked it up in 1973 after New York DJ Frankie Crocker started spinning it). When Thriller dropped a decade later, Dibango's lawyers spotted the borrowed hook immediately. The 1982 settlement was confidential but reportedly six figures plus a co-writing credit on later pressings. In 2007 Rihanna sampled Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' on her single Don't Stop the Music — meaning the Makossa hook had now been borrowed from a borrower. Dibango sued both Michael's estate and Rihanna in a Paris court in 2009; he won a partial settlement. Dibango died in March 2020 from COVID-19, aged 86, having outlived Michael by a decade. The chant itself is not actually Swahili — it's a phonetic Cameroonian Makossa scat that Dibango had invented for the song in 1971 and which means nothing in any language.
▶
THE MOMENT
Manu Dibango — Soul Makossa (1972) — The original hook Michael borrowed — and Rihanna borrowed again.