Soon expected to have a population of 9 million, Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is ranked as Africa's third largest urban conurbation after Lagos and Cairo. Soon after it was founded in 1881 as a trading post, the growing city was named Léopoldville after Léopold II, the then Belgian king. By the mid-1950s, Léopoldville already had 250,000 residents – many of them Europeans living in their own districts, such as today's Gombe and Kintambo, separated at that time from the African quarters. From its initial role as a strategic transhipment and trading centre, Kinshasa developed into an industrial and administrative hub. During the decades of dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko, this flourishing metropolis was plunged into a series of worsening economic crises. Today, the surviving remains of the once Kin la belle is haunted by the ghosts of the Belgian colonial regime and Mobutu's reign of terror.

Kinshasa had a thriving music industry from the 1950s to the 1970s. The documentary module focuses on the city's popular music, showing how the music reflects social and political relations.