CONGOTOPIA · Sonic migrations: Congolese rumba and utopias in 20th century West Central Africa
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-05-01 → 2024-06-15
- EU contribution
- €242,093
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Sonic migrations: Congolese rumba and utopias in 20th century West Central Africa
CONGOTOPIA proposes a new approach to the historical phenomenon of colonization and decolonization by looking at the politics of African popular music. The analysis of the development of Congolese rumba in the 20th century allows me to offer the first study of the decolonization of West Central Africa that goes beyond the national and colonial borders of the Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa, and Angola. The creation and evolution of this popular music reveals the utopias that circulated in the music world along the Atlantic coast, while showing the struggles against French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonial powers that dominated these territories. Moreover, this project addresses a period, from the 1930s and 1970s, during which ‘Congolese rumba’ is impossible to fully dissociated from its multi-layered relations with Cuba: not only Afro-Cuban music inspired this music since 1930, but the Cuban government developed new music exchanges in Central Africa to spread socialism and orient the decolonization in Africa after the 1959 Cuban revolution. This project thus allows to deepen our understanding of the global South from an African perspective and little-known trans-Atlantic exchanges. It addresses historical questions that matter to the broader public in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, especially regarding the consequences of colonization and the Pan-African solidarities that developed across theses continents to fight imperialism and racist ideologies.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
CONGOTOPIA proposes a new approach to the historical phenomenon of decolonization. Built on a rich bibliography in history, anthropology and sound studies, this project examines the movement of people, ideas and music put into motion by the Pan-African appeal of Congolese rumba. Inspired by early Afro-Cuban records, this dance music emerged in 1940s Leopoldville (current-day Kinshasa) and Brazzaville and soon became Africa’s most influential popular style thanks to the development—unique to Africa—of local radio stations and recording companies. Across different territories yearning for their independence, Congolese sound inaugurated a utopic Africa, audible over various Afro-Cuban rhythms and multi-voiced harmonies mixing Spanish with various African languages. While closely associated with pleasure, romance and fantasy, this popular music became a powerful marker of decolonization—in the 1960s, it “inflamed” Angolan nationalists’ spirit during the liberation war while allowing great Brussels-based musicians such as Manu Dibango to “jump in feet first with the question of Africa.” Examining the global, trans-imperial geography of Congolese rumba between Cuba, West Central Africa and Europe will reframe the conception of decolonization and the movements through which it unfolded in the period 1930-1974. By straddling the traditional divide between Francophone and Portuguese territories while reconnecting the African continent to the Southern Atlantic, it challenges established approaches to decolonization and sheds light on the history of a space (West central Africa) and from a perspective (colonized people’s) that have long been marginalized in the field of African studies. As the Congo(s) and Angola are impossible to fully dissociated from their multi-layered relations with Cuba in the period 1930-1974, the study of this musical region will deepen or understing of the Global South from an African perspective.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisCoordinatorFrance
- THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA · OaklandUnited States
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101032001
- https://esclavages.cnrs.fr/lequipe/doctorant-e-s/grabli-charlotte/
Data: CORDIS, © European Union