In the fall of 1974, George Foreman and Muhammad Ali met in the country of Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo, for the legendary boxing match known as "The Rumble in the Jungle." Although the Rumble had to be postponed until later that autumn, a related promotional event went on as scheduled and turned out to be similarly momentous: Zaire 74, a music festival where some of America's greatest black artists played alongside Africa's leading talent to an audience of tens of thousands. Documentaries and albums chronicling that festival have concentrated on the American performers, such as James Brown and B.B. King . The African artists have not received the same shine — and disputes over money and control, which kept a tight lid on concert footage, have not helped. Except for the South African legend Miriam Makeba , these musicians were all Congolese, including rumba maestros Franco and Tabu Ley Rochereau . But now their performances can be heard, many of them in full, on a
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