Jazz and decolonisation fuse in Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, an upbeat historical rollercoaster, set through four voices.

In 1961 singer Abbey Lincoln and drummer Max Roach crash the UN Security Council to protest the assassination of prime minister Patrice Lumumba of the newly independent Congo.

Six months earlier, newly independent African countries are admitted into the United Nations causing a seismic political shift across the world in the midst of the Cold War.

To retain their control of vital natural resources and global dominance, the US State Department use jazz ambassadors such Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and Duke Ellington who themselves are fighting for equality in their segregated homes, to connect with the African populations.

Told from the perspective of Central African Republic women’s rights activist and politician Andrée Blouin, Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien, Belgian-Congolese writer In Koli Jean Bofane, and Nikita Khrushchev himself this is an account of jazz and decolonisation. 

‘And now there’s Belgian film-maker Johan Grimonprez’s dazzling Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, a breathtaking, ideas-packed journey that weaves together American jazz and the geopolitical machinations of the 1950s and 60s’ – The Guardian ★★★★★