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The Mobutu regime was in its final epileptic throes, and authenticité (Mobutu’s back to the roots political platform of the 1970s and 1980s) was more often a source of humor than of pride. When I began field research on Congolese popular dance music in the summer of 1995, the Democratic Republic of Congo was still Zaire. But this is not how I came on the question of cosmopolitanism. 1 Research for this article was conducted during my residency as a post-doctoral fellow at the Smith (.)ĢAn exciting new literature has emerged on the topic of cosmopolitanism and precisely because of its insistence on history, it is now possible to speak of “cosmopolitanisms” in the plural and of cosmopolitan practices that take place in the periphery, topics that I will discuss in the final section of this article.My central argument is that Afro- Cuban music became popular in the Congo not only because it retained formal elements of “traditional” African musical performance, but also because it stood for a form of urban cosmopolitanism that was more accessible-and ultimately more pleasurable-than the various models of European cosmopolitanism which circulated in the Belgian colonies in Africa. I will reflect on what this musical style might have sounded like to Congolese living under colonial rule, but also what kind of social significance it held for them.
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Music pub carte noire series#
In this article I will look briefly at how Afro-Cuban music came to be imported to the Congo (in the form of a series of records referred to as the G.V. While research on the question of transatlantic cultural flows can provide valuable information about the roots and resilience of culture, I am more interested in what these flows mean to people in particular times and places and ultimately what people are able to do with them, both socially and politically.
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In historical terms, it is probably more accurate to say that Cuba and other Caribbean nations have been inspired by the musical traditions of Africa, though this is not the focus of my article. Given that since the beginning of Congolese modern music in the 1930s, Afro-Cuban music has been one of its primary sources of inspiration, this is obviously not a coincidence. Haut de pageġMost first-time listeners of Congolese popular dance music comment on the fact that this typically African musical style actually sounds like it comes from somewhere else: “Is that merengue?” or “It sounds kind of Cuban”. En comparant l’appropriation de la musique afro-cubaine au Congo à deux époques différentes, on tente de montrer en quoi les changements économiques mondiaux accompagnent les changements dans les conceptions locales du cosmopolitisme mais également de quelle façon la musique populaire sert de médiateur entre le local et le global. L’idée centrale de cet article est que la musique cubaine devint populaire au Congo pas seulement parce qu’elle conservait des éléments de la musique traditionnelle africaine mais aussi parce qu’elle présentait une certaine forme de cosmopolitisme urbain qui différait de l’influence européenne. Par ailleurs, on s’intéresse à la façon dont la rumba a subi progressivement un processus d’indigénisation qui a en a fait véritablement la « musica franca » de toute l’Afrique noire ainsi qu’un signe distinctif de l’identité nationale congolaise. By comparing the appropriation of Afro-Cuban music in the Congo during two distinct historical periods (during the peak of colonialism and several years after the death of Mobutu), I hope to show not only how changes in larger political economies correspond with changing notions of cosmopolitanism in a local setting, but also how popular music mediates at various levels between the local and the foreign.ĭans cet article, on examine la façon dont la musique afro-cubaine fut importée et distribuée au Congo-belge ainsi que la nature de l’emprunt stylistique ayant donné à la musique congolaise une saveur fortement afro-cubaine. My central argument is that Cuban music became popular in the Congo not only because it retained elements of “traditional” African musical and performative aesthetics, but also because it stood for a form of urban cosmopolitanism which was something other than European. But I am also interested in the way that Congolese rumba has gradually undergone a process of indigenization which has made it the “musica franca” of much of sub-Saharan Africa and an important marker of Congolese national identity. In this paper I will look briefly at how Afro-Cuban music came to be imported and distributed in the Belgian Congo and I will discuss some of the stylistic borrowing that has given Congolese music a strongly Afro-Cuban flavor.