(from Madhav Chari to me) Interesting, Zimmer is probably correct ....in tracing the connection between the two. But energetically the tunes are extremely different: just listen again.
We tend to look for similarities in "structure" or "motifs", and there could be conscious similarities. However what makes the piece is the total emotional energy of the piece ... Hear the end of the Jackson tune when he say ma ma se etc and hear Dibango say it in the course of the tune: actually the energy is extremely different. Jackson's articulation is different: it sounds more aggressive than Dibango, also regarding the entire piece its almost as if the Jackson piece is a "cleaned" up compared to Dibango ... obviously we also hear a US production job. However to me the Dibango tune is no less musical, no less interesting and probably connects with a deeper musical spirit .... the specific musical articulation is a connect to the spirit of the music form ... musical articulation is similar to "accent" in everyday language: not accent as in where the beats go but accent as in Irish, mid western, Long Island, upper class Indian in Mumbai speaking English .... I cannot show you articulation unless I play it for you, or point you to recorded music ... -MC +++++++++++++++++++ And recently upon my requesting permission to post his thoughts on Goanet. (MC) Go ahead .... but the important thing to note is that one should be able to hear this articulation and emotive difference ... we can describe all we want using English but that never gets us very far .... and this ability to hear the music cannot be "intellectually" explained: one listens and listens and listens till some part of that music sits inside your system / your body-mind .... +++++++++++++++++++ vjp > Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:52:28 -0400 > From: Venantius Pinto <venantius.pi...@gmail.com> > Subject: [Goanet] Michael Jackson's Nonsense Chant > > Michael Jackson's Nonsense Chant at: > http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/blogexcerpts/1902/ > > Yesterday, Ben Zimmer traced > <http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1542>the nonsense-syllable > chant at the end of Michael Jackson's > *Wanna Be Startin Somethin* back to its roots in Manu Dibango's *Soul > Makossa*, a 1973 Cameroonian hit that played a role in the origins of disco > in New York City. The chants in these songs are nice examples of a > phenomenon that I discussed a couple of years ago ("Rock syncopation: > stress > shifts or polyrhythms?< > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/005154.html>", > 11/26/2007), where linguistic accents and musical beats start off aligned > at > the beginning of a phrase, and then go out of sync, typically with one or > more of the later textual accents shifted "to the left", i.e. ahead in > time, > relative to the apparent musical beat. > ++++++++++++++++++++ > Madhav, please take a look at it. > ++++++++++++++++++++ > venantius >