Listen to the French Institute’s Sounds of Southern Africa podcast

Sounds of Southern Africa features researchers and experts who discuss their findings on how music has influenced 20th Century politics to the present day in countries like Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and the DRC.

The podcast’s five episodes are Musical ‘Stolen Moments’ in Namibia Under South Africa’s Rule, Rap and Political Dissent in Contemporary Angola, The Hidden Years Music Archive: (Re)Discovering Underground South African Jazz, Rock, and Pop Music From the 1950s – 1980s, From Congo Belge to the Independence: The Journey of Congolese Rumba and Popular Music, and Social Protest in Mozambique.

“The researchers analyse these complex relationships and, to our great delight, give us the opportunity to listen to little-known melodies and sounds,” IFAS said.

The first episode features Namibian curator Aino Moongo and filmmaker Thorsten Shütte whose aim is to find and preserve the country’s musical archives through the Stolen Moments Namibia project. In the second episode, the potential for political protest conveyed by rap music is highlighted by the French National Centre for Research’s Dr Chloé Buire who explains how the genre carries an important dimension of social criticism in a society in search for free speech.

IFAS said: “We invite you on a musical journey through a history marked by adversity and resilience, through a variety of musical genres – from South African and Namibian melodies in the apartheid era to Congolese rumba in the colonial period, and rap or pop music in contemporary Mozambique and Angola.”

Episode three features Dr Lizabé Lambrechts and David Marks as guests and contains a wide variety of documents dating back to the apartheid era. In episode four, historian Charlotte Grabli takes listeners to the DRC where she analyses the relationship between Congolese and Afro-Cuban music until the last years of Belgian colonisation.

In the last part, social anthropologist and director of Kaleidoscopio Dr Euclides Goncalves explores how popular music became an important vehicle for political protest and a privileged channel for social commentary in Mozambique.

Listen to the Sounds of Southern Africa podcast here.