Jazz, empire and the Cold WarTo protest Lumumba’s assassination, jazz drummer Max Roach and his wife, singer Abbey Lincoln, participated in a demonstration at the United Nations in New York. Soundtrack reaches its crescendo when Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln perform “Freedom,” as protesters storm the United Nations Palace shortly after news of Lumumba’s assassination breaks. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État brilliantly examines how jazz artists became involved in the Cold War and the CIA’s geopolitical agendas. Lumumba, Congo and the global stakes of decolonizationIndeed, one of the film’s central themes is the strategic deployment of jazz and Black American jazz musicians as instruments in the US imperial arsenal. In the General Assembly, the Global South community was pushing for a United Nations force against the colonial powers.