We’ve Got “Rumba On The River”

Published 7 years ago

Thank you for the gift!

A colleague of mine departing the Congo was kind enough to offer me an invaluable resource: “Rumba On The River”, the book. After a couple of years, his Kinshasa tour came to an end. It was very pleasant to share his company. Really, that is the type of person you want to talk to. I noticed a deep sense of sincerity and engagement in any of our conversations. The gift was just one more proof of his great heart.

I remember introducing him to the CongoleseMusic.com project a few months ago. We discussed how I could add value to the project and how little Kinshasa history was documented on the web. He then told me he was reading Rumba On The River, among other books. It was one of my targeted books too. Throughout the conversation, he offered to give it to me upon his departure. How king is that? So here I am, lucky enough to get enriched with this great resource.

Initial Thoughts About Rumba On The River

I quickly went through the book to forge an early opinion. It pleasantly surprised me. This is not the book’s review though, just my first impressions. Rumba On The River is about 400 pages of Congolese music history. Chapters range from the creation of both Congos (1946 and before), to “the gray nineties”. The chronological approach makes it easy to follow along or directly reach for a specific period of interest.

Gary Steward, the author, uses a captivating storytelling style. The writing leaves very little room for ambiguities. The style is so captivating that instead of just skimming through, I often stayed longer on some pages, trying to guess the end of that portion of history. I also paused sometimes to search for a particular song or location on the Internet. That is how captivating the book is. On top of these, Rumba On The River is aerated with well-placed historic photos.

Well, sure enough, there are limitations when covering a large portion of such rich history in a single book, may it be a 400-page one. Each of Rumba On The River’s chapters could easily become a book of its own. Therefore, Gary had to simplify stories and facts, and only extract their essences. But that’s fine for most of us; it allows you to put all pieces into perspective, then to discover even more through CongoleseMusic.com… I am joking. I will be learning as much as many readers of the book. Hopefully, the knowledge from the book will help me deliver more accurate contents and analyses here.