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Jazz Saxophonist Manu Dibango

Jazz saxophonist Manu Dibango is the first African musician ever to record a top 40s hit as well as the most influential artist of Afro music. His autobiography, Three Kilos of Coffee, reveals his musical life, the impact of his multicultural background and his political views as it traces his career and the complexities of his heritage. Dibango's autobiography is based on a series of 1989 interviews with French journalist Danielle Rouard of Le Monde and is an insightful, honest, fascinating look at Manu Dibango's development as both a human being and a musician. The title of the book is attributed to the medium of exchange between his French school masters and his civil-servant father when he leaves his homeland of Africa at age 15 to go to a boarding school in France to prepare for a professional career. He has "a small sum and three kilos of coffee to pay for my first term at boarding school."

A cash down-payment had previously been made by his father, but coffee was the preferred yearly payment. The title is not just a colorful phrase; coffee is significant on both cultural and economic levels as a medium of exchange in post World War II France where good coffee was scarce and valuable for the coffee loving French. Later in the book, Manu tries to convince the President of his homeland of Cameroon to bring out a Cameroonian brand of coffee that would "sell tons" in the United States, but his suggestion is not taken seriously as one that would not only make money for Cameroon, but also bring the country good public relations. This incident represents one of Manu's many disappointments with the post-Independence Africa that he loves as, in his viewpoint, it indicates a lack of imagination that will hamper the country's development. Manu's disappointment with the situation in Africa after independence is one of the central themes of the book. Like many other blacks from all over the world, he expected an independent Africa to fl...

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Jazz Saxophonist Manu Dibango. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:28, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1703368.html