08 ISSUE X
FEBRUARY 2026
FEBRUARY 2026
cold war jazz
The film, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’État” reveals imperialism’s machinery, operating not through brute force but through art and culture wielded as soft power to pacify subjects.
By Ivan Pech
In 1960, the Democratic Republic of Congo declared independence, a moment of profound possibility that was quickly followed by the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the violent reassertion of imperial control. That year - often described as “the Year of Africa” because at least sixteen newly independent African nations were admitted to the United Nations. At the same time, global powers worked to shape, contain, and undermine the political futures of these new states, like they did in the DRC. Meanwhile, the United States was experiencing a cultural and civil rights awakening led by Black musicians, whose artistic production carried political meanings that traveled far beyond national borders. The US would enlist these musicians in its Cold War propaganda. Together, these intersecting histories reveal how imperial power functioned not only through military and political force, but also through culture, symbolism, and the strategic deployment of art. These dynamics are powerfully woven together in Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez’s 2024 documentary SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ÉTAT.
Image from the Guardian, Screenshot by CNET.
At the heart of the film is an exploration of the politics of cultural diplomacy. It promotes a nation’s interests through its creative industries; in this case, the United States deployed jazz as a tool of soft power. Musicians such as Nina Simone and Louis Armstrong toured cities from Accra to Kinshasa, projecting American ideals of freedom abroad, as black Americans faced terrorism from white nationalist groups and the police while the US federal government mostly looked the other way. The film’s editing is brilliant, treating historical facts not as the protagonist but as the backdrop to the soundtrack. The closer you look at the film, the more contradictions you see in the story. It’s structured as a jazz piece, frenetic, loud, and proud, creating a sense of unity and solidarity through its resilience.
Image via Open Culture.
The music functions not only as a backdrop to political movement but also as a warning. One key detour leads to the 15th General Assembly of the United Nations, where leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement—joined by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev—openly confronted Western powers. The film draws a deliberate parallel between the pageantry of jazz performance and that of political spectacle, cutting between the first meeting of Khrushchev and Fidel Castro at Harlem’s Hotel Theresa and a concert by Pérez Prado. These scenes underscore the performative dimensions of Cold War diplomacy, particularly in 1960, when the Soviet Union formally demanded decolonization and independence for all colonial peoples - a resolution adopted by the General Assembly, with the United States and the United Kingdom abstaining.
The film also foregrounds the story of Andrée Blouin—Patrice Lumumba’s adviser and speechwriter, as well as a prominent women’s rights activist—whose political influence made her a target of intense suspicion in the West. Because of her earlier work with Ahmed Sékou Touré and the Guinean Democratic Party during Guinea’s struggle for independence from France, Blouin was widely cast in the Western Hemisphere as an ally of communism. Belgian officials and the international press framed her influence in overtly gendered and racialized terms: one Belgian official described her as “a beautiful but also dangerous woman, perhaps the most dangerous woman in all of Africa,” while newspapers derisively labeled her “the courtesan of African heads of state,” according to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ÉTAT shows us a glimpse of how the machinery of imperialism operates, not only through brute force, but through the soft power of art and culture used to pacify and subdue its subjects, while looking at the contradictions of culture. The closer you get to the “truth,” the more inconsistencies you get.
ivan pech is completing an ma in international affairs at the new school.