REVIEWER MEETS REVIEWED

AN VIRTUAL SEMINAR SERIES OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

Breaking Rocks: Music, Ideology and Economic Collapse from Paris to Kinshasa

Thursday 20 May 2021 at 4.00-6.00pm (BST)

This webinar will be held on Zoom. Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0rbHbrBtR-SjhbIDUtjE5Q 

The British Museum’s Anthropology Library and Research Centre, in conjunction with the Royal Anthropological Institute, is pleased to present ‘Reviewer meets Reviewed’, a discussion between author Dr Joe Trapido and reviewer Prof David Font-Navarrete.

Based on fieldwork in Kinshasa and Paris, Breaking Rocks examines patronage payments within Congolese popular music, where a love song dedication can cost 6,000 dollars and a simple name check can trade for 500 or 600 dollars. Tracing this system of prestige through networks of musicians and patrons – who include gangsters based in Europe, kleptocratic politicians in Congo, and lawless diamond dealers in northern Angola – this book offers insights into ideologies of power and value in central Africa’s troubled post-colonial political economy, as well as a glimpse into the economic flows that make up the hidden side of the globalization.