Breaking Rocks
Subtitle: Music, Ideology and Economic Collapse, from Paris to Kinshasa
Publisher: Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9781785333989
Subjects: Political anthropology
Description: 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.