The Hitmaker sent this one along while we were brainstorming new jams for Que Rico!
I remember some business a while back about the chanted vocal refrain "Mama-ko, mama-sa, ma-ka-ma-ko-ssa" from Michael Jackson's 1982 "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" coming from an African hit and forgot to look it up. Here it is!

"Soul Makossa" is a 1972 single by Cameroonian makossa saxophonist Manu Dibango and It is often cited as one of the first disco records. Wiki reports that In 1972 David Mancuso found a copy in a Brooklyn West Indian record store and often played it at his Loft parties.The response was so positive that the few copies of "Soul Makossa" in New York City were quickly bought up and the song was subsequently played heavily by Frankie Crocker, who DJed at WBLS, then New York's most popular black radio station. Since the original was now unfindable, at least 23 groups quickly released cover versions to capitalize on the demand for the record, and Atlantic eventually licensed the song ands their release of it peaked at #35 on the Billboard chart in 1973. At one point there were nine different versions of the song in the Billboard chart.

Soul Makossa