Table of Contents

Preface xi
Note to the Reader xxi
1. Popular Culture's Politics 1
2. The Zairian Sound 27
3. Made in Zaire 65
4. Live Time 97
5. Musicians and Mobility 131
6. Live Texts 165
7. The Political Life of Dance Bands 195
8. In the Skin of a Chief 225
Notes 253
Bibliography 271
Discography 287
Index 289

Promotional Information

Details the relationship between popular music and politics in Zaire during the presidency of Mobutu Sese Seko

About the Author

Bob W. White is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Montreal.

Reviews

"What began with an extraordinary feat of immersion into Kinshasa's music scene toward the end of Mobutu's regime has been honed and crafted into a study of Congolese popular culture and politics that is bound to become a classic. A feat of ethnography and a much needed ray of hope in these messy and tragic times."--Johannes Fabian, author of Memory against Culture: Arguments and Reminders "Rumba Rules is a really exciting book, definitely worthy of the 'groundbreaking' and 'sorely needed' labels it is bound to attract. It is full of the basics and the nuances; deeply informative about a place, a scene, a local history, and lived realities; and deeply accountable to debates and discussions about how popular culture encodes a feeling of and for modernity."--Steven Feld, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Music, University of New Mexico "Rumba Rules ties dance music to dictatorship, band leaders to politicians, in ways that are sensitive to the struggles of Congolese musicians and their fans in Kinshasa. Bob W. White neither diminishes the artistry and entertainment value of musical performances nor over-determines their role in political culture. This is a book that finely theorizes the relationship between aesthetics and political culture through vivid and often amusing storytelling."--Louise Meintjes, author of Sound of Africa! Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio