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 1998 album: 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 a sustained 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.