Abstract. Heterotrophic soil respiration is an important component of the global terrestrial carbon (C) cycle, driven by environmental factors acting from local to continental scales. For tropical Africa, these factors and their interactions remain largely unknown. Here, using samples collected along strong topographic and geochemical gradients in the East African Rift Valley, we study how soil chemistry and soil fertility, derived from the geochemical composition of soil parent material, can drive soil respiration even after many millennia of weathering and soil development. To address the drivers of soil respiration, we incubated soils from three regions with contrasting geochemistry (mafic, felsic, and mixed sedimentary) sampled along slope gradients. For three soil depths, we measured the potential maximum heterotrophic respiration under stable environmental conditions as well as the radiocarbon content (\u039414C) of the bulk soil and respired CO2. We found that soil microbial communities were able to mineralize C from fossil as well as other poor quality C sources under laboratory conditions representative of tropical topsoils. Furthermore, despite similarities in terms of climate, vegetation, and the size of soil C stocks, soil respiration showed distinct patterns with soil depth and parent material geochemistry. The topographic origin of our samples was not a main determinant of the observed respiration rates and \u039414C. In situ, however, soil hydrological conditions likely influence soil C stability by inhibiting decomposition in valley subsoils. Our study shows that soil fertility conditions are the main determinant of C stability in tropical forest soils. Further, in the presence of organic carbon sources of poor quality or the presence of strong mineral related C stabilization, microorganisms tend to discriminate against these sources in favor of more accessible forms of soil organic matter as energy sources, resulting in a slower rate of C cycling. Our results demonstrate that even in deeply weathered tropical soils, parent material has a long-lasting effect on soil chemistry that can influence and control microbial activity, the size of subsoil C stocks, and the turnover of C in soil. Soil parent material and its lasting control on soil chemistry need to be taken into account to understand and predict C stabilization and rates of C cycling in tropical forest soils.