Soundtrack to a Coup d’État: neocolonialism and resistance
Director Johan Grimonprez discusses Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, his powerful exploration of Congo’s decolonization struggle, in conversation with Peter Mertens, Belgian political leader and author of Mutiny.
January 28, 2025 by Peter Mertens
With Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, director Johan Grimonprez delivers a captivating period piece exploring mutiny in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Global South rose up and numerous countries achieved independence.
The film delves into Congo, Belgian colonialism, Union Minière, Paul-Henri Spaak, Gaston Eyskens, the CIA and US imperialism, as well as figures like Nkrumah, Pan-Africanist firebrand Andrée Blouin, Fidel Castro, and Malcolm X. It captures the spirit of Bandung and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.
The entire work is masterfully crafted to the rhythms and tones of jazz. Music and politics intertwine in a sultry dialogue, from Max Roach’s opening drum sequence to the piercing scream of singer Abbey Lincoln.
Peter Mertens met Johan Grimonprez, the director of this remarkable audiovisual masterpiece, at his kitchen table in Brussels on a cold yet sunny Tuesday morning. Having just returned from a film festival where his work earned accolades, he is now preparing for his next journey to New York. Despite his busy schedule, Grimonprez warmly sets aside time for a cup of Japanese green tea and an engaging conversation.
Peter Mertens: Why did you want to make this film?
Johan Grimonprez: The story of Congo’s independence and Lumumba’s assassination is often told from the same perspective, and it’s rarely from the point of view of those directly involved or from the perspective of countries in the Global South. I was fortunate to gain access to the archives of people close to Patrice Lumumba, as well as those involved in his deposition and assassination. I uncovered countless untold and unwritten stories. The film was also a steep learning experience for me; I had never studied this in school. We were presented with simplistic portrayals of Congo, much like the ones from Chocolat Jacques, which meant our view was completely distorted.
PM: The filmmaking process was full of surprises wasn’t it?
JG: At one point, I came across an audio interview with William Burden in the archives at Columbia University. Burden, stationed in Brussels as the US ambassador, was also spying for the CIA. In the recording, he casually states: ‘Lumumba was such a damn nuisance that it was perfectly obvious the only way to get rid of him was through political assassination.’ This is the US ambassador, nonchalantly declaring that Lumumba had to be eliminated! Such testimony, of course, directly contradicts statements by President Eisenhower, who during the same period claimed that every country should be free of external influence.
PM: Why was Congo so important?
JG: Congo has always been incredibly rich in resources: ivory, coffee, rubber, and later copper, diamonds, and gold. During the Cold War, controlling Congo’s uranium—essential for producing atomic weapons—became a key priority for the US. Despite this wealth, the Congolese people had no say in how it was managed. Patrice Lumumba sought to change that, which made him a significant threat to both the US and Belgium. They were willing to go to any lengths to secure access to strategic minerals and prevent Lumumba’s push for true independence.
PM: In your film, you use a famous metaphor by Frantz Fanon, the Pan-African philosopher, freedom fighter and revolutionary.
JG: “Africa is shaped like a gun, and Congo is the trigger,” Fanon once said. “If that explosive trigger bursts, the whole of Africa will explode.” It’s a powerful image, both literal and figurative, depicting an African revolver that could fire in two directions.
At that time, many African leaders were fighting for sovereignty, striving to control their own resources. If Congo—a country at the heart of Africa—had been able to develop autonomously under a progressive nationalist like Lumumba, aligned with the Pan-Africanism of Kwame Nkrumah and Sékou Touré, it would have significantly bolstered the independence movement.
Instead, the revolver fired in the opposite direction: the dream of independence was violently suppressed, beginning with the coup in Congo. In this sense, it was not just the assassination of a democratically elected prime minister, but the deliberate silencing of a broader wave of change sweeping across the African continent.
PM: The setting of the film is the fifteenth UN General Assembly. That is not a coincidence.
JG: For the first time, 16 independent African countries joined the UN General Assembly. Their presence gave them a majority vote, creating a true political landslide. With this shift, the Global South gained the power to make decisions, which inevitably sparked resistance in the West—particularly in the United States.
PM: One of the most striking images in the film is of then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev taking off his shoes and angrily banging on the table during that UN summit.
JG: I had always known about the shoe incident and found it amusing, but I never realized it was connected to Belgium and Congo. Only later did I discover that Khrushchev banged his shoe on the table to protest the coup against Lumumba and denounce the hypocrisy of Western nations. He mentioned this in his audio memoirs, which I obtained from his son Sergei. These recordings, which had never been released as historical sources, shed light on the event since no footage exists.
Khrushchev learned about Mobutu’s coup [Mobutu Sese Seko was the US and Belgian-backed Chief of Staff of the Congolese Army] on September 14, 1960, while traveling by boat to the UN summit in New York. He immediately rewrote his speech to deliver a sharp critique of the West’s grip on Africa. At the UN General Assembly, he introduced decolonization resolution 1514, advocating for the independence of colonized nations and peoples, with Congo taking center stage.
It was a shrewd move on Khrushchev’s part, as it rallied non-aligned Asian and African countries and forced the West to take a clear stance: either support decolonization or openly oppose it. While the US and Belgium abstained, the resolution passed, inspiring a powerful sense of hope and solidarity.
PM: A feeling that was short-lived?
JG: The resolution set a great deal in motion; decolonization had officially begun. Yet in Congo, the fight against independence persisted. On July 10, ten thousand Belgian soldiers were deployed. Under their supervision, Moïse Tshombe, appointed as the puppet president of the rich province of Katanga, declared independence. Patrice Lumumba, who had been placed under house arrest by Mobutu, was handed over to Tshombe at the urging of Belgian advisers. On January 17, Lumumba was assassinated.
Four years later, Frédéric Vandewalle, former head of State Security, called in 800 white mercenaries to brutally crush the Simba rebellion in eastern Congo. Although the United Nations had formally prohibited foreign interference, Belgium once again secured its economic interests. Paul-Henri Spaak, then Belgian NATO secretary general, lied about this intervention in the Security Council, while UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld turned a blind eye.
More broadly, Lumumba’s assassination marked Ground Zero for how the West would handle Congo and the Global South. Leaders like Spaak and Eisenhower publicly supported independence and decolonization, but their actions signaled the start of neocolonialism—a period that continues to this day.
PM: It’s notable that there are so many African and Asian heads of state at the UN summit.
JG: It was Khrushchev who proposed that the participating countries bypass diplomats and instead engage in direct discussions among world leaders. Indonesia’s Sukarno, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, and other pioneers of the Bandung Conference five years earlier took up the call and attended the summit. Fidel Castro delivered a passionate speech on anti-imperialism, social inequality, resistance, and socialism, while Kwame Nkrumah emphasized pan-Africanism and economic independence.
PM: The moment Castro lands in Harlem and is applauded, was the biggest surprise of the movie for me.
JG: On the evening of September 19, 1960, Fidel Castro and the Cuban delegation were scheduled to stay at the Shelburne Hotel but were refused entry. The media launched a smear campaign, accusing the Cubans of slaughtering chickens in their hotel rooms. In response, Malcolm X invited the Cuban delegation to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. There, they were warmly welcomed, and around midnight, Malcolm X visited. This led to a long and amicable discussion about self-determination and national liberation.
PM: Malcolm X did play a remarkable role during that period.
JG: Malcolm X served as a bridge between the civil rights movement and the global anti-colonial struggle. At one point, he spoke of ‘one country, one vote,’ referring to the voting power of newly independent African nations at the UN and the geopolitical shift it represented. Toward the end of the film, he succinctly captures what truly frightened the superpowers about Congo: ‘It is not communism, socialism, or the leftist movement that they fear. It is Africanism—people asserting their own rights and determining their own future.’
PM: The film features other notable characters.
JG: The film unfolds as a dialogue among various voices. One of them is Conor Cruise O’Brien, a UN envoy to Congo in 1960. He details how American and British mining companies pushed to neutralize Lumumba, using mercenaries and backing Belgium’s military intervention to destabilize the newly independent Congo by supporting Katanga’s secession.
The family archive of Belgian-Congolese novelist In Koli Jean Bofane offers another compelling perspective, featuring home videos from the 1960s. Bofane recounts how he and his mother were kidnapped by a white rubber plantation owner, and how his mother, like other women, was forced into marriage. Bofane spent part of his youth in relative opulence on the plantation, where the stark power dynamics between exploiter and oppressed were impossible to ignore.
The film also sheds light on the extraordinary story of Andrée Blouin, a woman who played an intriguing role in the rise of Pan-Africanism and in Lumumba’s political movement.
PM: I only really got to know Andrée Blouin thanks to your film.
JG: I felt it wasn’t my place to tell the story of Patrice Lumumba. In the film I leave that to Andrée Blouin, Lumumba’s right-hand woman, among others. Blouin has been erased from history, despite her extraordinary story. Her political activism began in the fight for Guinea-Bissau’s independence. She became acquainted with leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first prime minister, and emerged as a passionate advocate for Pan-Africanism. In 1960, she moved to Congo and quickly established a women’s rights advocacy organization with 45,000 members.
Information about her was scarce, so we sought out her family. Through them, we obtained invaluable material: her memoirs, photographs, and even an undeveloped film, which we processed here in Brussels. It was incredible—images of her as a two-year-old with her mother in Leopoldville. We wove this material into the film as a contrast to the stark historical realities. Those intimate family moments embedded within a larger political narrative reflect the rhythm of history, like a heartbeat.
PM: ‘Soundtrack’ is also in the title of your film. You can feel the political tension between decolonization and neocolonialism in the music you use.
JG: Yes, music plays a central role in the film, not only as an artistic expression but also as a historical political instrument. On one hand, there were the ‘jazz ambassadors’ sent abroad by the US State Department as a propaganda tool to win over countries in the Global South. It was a kind of ‘cool war’ instead of the Cold War, so to speak.
Take Louis Armstrong, for example. In November 1960, he was sent to Congo as an ambassador of Black jazz. Yet, behind his back, his concert was part of a CIA operation to eliminate Lumumba. At one point, Armstrong found himself seated at a table with Moïse Tshombe, but what he didn’t realize was that US Ambassador Timberlake and Larry Devlin, the CIA’s chief operative in Congo, were also present. Armstrong was told that Devlin was an agricultural expert, but at that time, Devlin was already deeply involved in the assassination plot against Lumumba and in positioning Mobutu as a pawn.
Similarly, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie were sent to various countries as ‘promoters of American values.’
PM: On the other hand, you also present music as an instrument of resistance, with the power of African-American music in the movement for independence and against segregation in the US.
JG: That was a revelation for me. While searching the archives, I discovered that singer Abbey Lincoln and drummer Max Roach had released an avant-garde jazz album, the iconic We Insist! Freedom Now. The album tells the story of slavery, the horrors of colonialism, and the resilience and pride of those who fought against racial and colonial oppression—both in the US civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. The track Tears for Johannesburg, for instance, was inspired by the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in South Africa. The album powerfully conveys activist themes.
Most strikingly, I came across footage of a 1964 live recording of this album in the archives of the BRT (Belgian Radio and Television). The irony is striking: Belgian television was broadcasting a scathing critique of colonialism at the very same time Belgian troops and mercenaries were committing atrocities in Congo. These actions were condoned by Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak and downplayed in the UN Security Council.
PM: We also encounter Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane and Archie Shepp in the film. There was really a broad wave of activist artists.
JG: Jazz music was more than just culture; it was a weapon in the fight for equal rights. It played a vital role in the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle for equality, and it remains significant today. Not only musicians but also writers, poets, and actors within broader American culture spoke out against segregation in the US and colonialism in Africa.
One of the key hot spots at the time was Lewis Michaux’s legendary bookstore at 7th Avenue and 125th Street, near the Theresa Hotel, where Lumumba gave a speech during his visit to Harlem. The bookstore became a regular meeting place for civil rights activists.
On February 15, 1961, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Maya Angelou, and a group of other artists went to the UN Security Council to voice their opposition to the atrocities unfolding in Congo.
PM: Did music also play a role in Congo itself?
JG: Yes. Rumba, a style of music popular among black Cubans—many of whom were third- or fourth-generation Congolese—was hugely popular in Congo. There was significant travel between Havana and Leopoldville, and some of the musicians working on ships brought Rumba back to Congo.
One notable group, Rock-a-Mambo, was a Congolese Rumba band that toured the cités with Lumumba in the late 1950s, moving from café to café. At the time, Lumumba was a beer salesman, but his political campaign was already underway, and Rock-a-Mambo consistently accompanied him. Lumumba built his immense popularity through his advocacy for decolonization, and Rumba played a vital role in uniting people during this period.
PM: In your film, you show that Congo’s exploitation is not a story of the past, but a reality that continues to this day.
JG: Only the faces have changed. The Union Minières of the past have become Umicore, Tesla, and Apple. In the 1960s, it was about uranium; today, it’s lithium and coltan. In this sense, the film is not a nostalgic story confined to the past. You cannot tell the story of Lumumba’s assassination without connecting it to the present. That’s why I included commercials, such as for the iPhone, in the film.
At the premiere in Leuven, after those commercials, they thought the movie was over and turned on the lights (laughs). But that choice was deliberate—to jolt the audience and make them confront the current reality.
The situation in eastern Congo may be even worse today. The exploitation of minerals like gold and coltan is directly tied to violence against women. Rape is used as a weapon of war to displace communities. In recent years, over 80,000 survivors of sexual violence have sought help at Dr. Denis Mukwege’s Panzi Hospital—equivalent to roughly 1 in 10 women in the region.
PM: A striking moment in the film are the images of Ambroise Boimbo taking King Baudouin’s sword for a few minutes. A way to also address the role of Belgium?
JG: Those are deeply symbolic images. On June 29, King Baudouin parades through the streets of Leopoldville, and in a brief but striking moment, a man snatches his sword. It didn’t last long, but for many in Congo, that image became a powerful symbol of independence.
I amplify the tension of that moment by intercutting Baudouin’s paternalistic display—parading through Leopoldville like a pope—with a raw bass clarinet solo by Eric Dolphy. The solo starkly counters Baudouin’s speech about Leopold II. Dolphy’s clarinet clashes with the colonial brass band accompanying Baudouin, illustrating both the critique of Belgian paternalism and the feverish anticipation surrounding independence.
PM: The Belgian royal family and government also play an important role.
JG: On June 30, 1960, the independent Republic of Congo was officially established, marking the end of the colonial period with a ceremony in Leopoldville. However, the 2024 Parliamentary Commission report reveals that King Baudouin was strongly opposed to genuine economic and political independence.
Just ten days after independence, the Belgian army was deployed in Katanga, and for years, with Baudouin’s full knowledge, Belgium continued to intervene to protect the interests of Belgian companies. Even today, part of the establishment refuses to acknowledge the role played by the royal family and Belgian politicians in these events, but it remains an undeniable part of our Belgian history.
PM: A history that today is still not told often enough?
JG: I think this reflects a gap in our history education. When I was young, the only images we had of Congo came from Chocolat Jacques wrappers. That’s how distorted and exoticized the picture was that we were fed. The political establishment clung to a colonial mindset. For instance, Gaston Eyskens, Belgium’s prime minister at the time, described the Belgian presence in Congo as a so-called ‘work of civilization’ for the benefit of a less developed people, denying any colonialist or imperialist intentions.
The atrocities were never discussed—l’empire du silence prevailed. Even today, we are still presented with a distorted narrative. While there is now more attention on what Leopold II did, this focus often serves to obscure what happened afterward and what continues to happen today.
That’s a story we need to keep telling. And we must also repeat that Africa will not stand idly by. The search for African cooperation is ongoing. One of the most meaningful compliments I received was from an African acquaintance who wrote: “What makes this film so special is that our continent is currently at a crossroads, and we have the opportunity to reunite that (Pan-African) dream. I really hope Soundtrack is shown in every country on the continent”. The fact that the film resonates so strongly and reflects ongoing struggles is one of the greatest compliments I’ve received.
Peter Mertens is a writer and the Secretary General of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB/PDVA).
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