CubAfrica

Veteran Cameroonian sax player Manu Dibango was no stranger to Latin music when he teamed up with Cuban son band El Cuarteto Patria for this album in 1998: playing in Kinshasa’s hottest nightclubs in the 1960s, it would have been impossible to escape the Cuban rhythms that were taking over the city. Yet this is his first real foray into Cuban music, and it works. At times sax and guitar seem to talk to each other, giving the record a lovely, playful improvisational feel to it. The musicians give each other plenty of space, and Dibango’s funky Makossa sound melds perfectly with Eliades Ochoa’s authentic Cuban son.