Rumba Rules: The Politics of Dance Music in Mobutu's Zaire

摘要

[...] even though White does show how Mobutu created a structure of loyalty to his regime (chapter 3) and how this power and hierarchy plays out in music bands (chapter seven), it is the details of live concerts and song texts (chapters four, five, & six) where the reader observes musicians use their public presence to make money from fans who are themselves "obsessed" with building public image when their names appear in song titles or are mentioned by the musicians during a concert. Broadly speaking, Rumba Rules' success as specific to a place could also be its challenge, as it tends to lose sight of similar experiences elsewhere in Africa. [...] on the one hand, my favorite discussion occurs when White takes the reader inside the live concert realm (in chapters four, five, and seven), into the warm small rooms where Big Stars group members are practicing or performing and White's own attempts to play Zairian rhythms on guitar.