Wednesday, July 01, 2009

More on Michael Jackson's best

I ran across this Michael Jackson obituary in the New Yorker, which was most interesting to me for the light it shed on the African origins of the "mamma say mamma sa..." lyrics.

And here is the link to the song "Soul Makossa" as mentioned in the article.

2 comments:

Eric said...

I just listened to this the other day for the first time too. I had always understood it as a wholesale ripoff-- almost a sample. But he really just takes the phrase (and the phrasing) and puts a totally different spin on it. On the other hand, Soul Makossa is, on its own, a pretty awesome track.

jayguevara said...

Yeah, "Makossa" shows up on a lot of West-African tinged music--anything with lots of bass and horns, and a funky beat.