Congo War

After a brief lull at the end of the 1930s, a new cluster of Brazza biographies, one of them a film, surfaced during and immediately following the Second World War. The film, Brazza, l'épopée du Congo, directed by Léon Poirier, premiered in January 1940; its 150-page screenplay, thickened by dozens of stills, saw print in book form a few weeks later. The story is familiar, the view of Africa a string of stereotypes. The movie features a bare-breasted African woman whose plaintive chants narrate the film's transitions from one scene to the next.

This whopping 30-CD box set gathers together the best of Trojan's three-disc box set series. Included are the Ska, DJ, Dub, Instrumentals, Jamaican Superstars, Lovers, Producer Series, Rocksteady, Roots, and Tribute to Bob Marley volumes, each of which can be found under Trojan Box Set for their individual reviews. What's lacking here is a booklet with additional notes and information; the bulk seems to demand some extra coverage and care, yet all that's here are the original notes of each volume – only as much text as can fit on the back of the CD sleeves.