This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Manu Dibango, a saxophonist from Cameroon whose 1972 single “Soul Makossa” made modern African music a clear presence on Western pop charts, died on Tuesday in a hospital in France. He was 86.

His Facebook page said the cause was Covid-19 but did not say where in France he died. Mr. Dibango had lived in France for some time.

Although “Soul Makossa” was named after makossa, a Cameroonian style of music, and its lyrics were in the Douala language of Cameroon, Mr. Dibango’s worldwide hit was an internationalist piece of funk.