From May 30 to June 1, 2025, the 37th Swahili Colloquium (Kongamano la Kiswahili la 37, Uhuru na Ubunifu) took place at the University of Bayreuth. Antonia Fendt and Nico Nassenstein gave a joint lecture entitled "Congolese Swahili Varieties and the Rumba: Investigating Linguistic Variation in Music Lyrics (1950s-90s)". In their contribution, they dealt with the role and variation of Swahili - a language which, alongside Lingala, is of particular importance in the song texts of the Congolese collection of the AMA in Mainz. Through their presentation, they were able to establish contacts with Kenyan music producer and author Tabu Osusa (Ketebul Music) and ethnomusicologist Dr. Andrew Eisenberg (New York University Abu Dhabi), who are currently researching Swahili rumba - a genre that developed on the East African coast in the 1940s and 1950s, even before the formative influence of Congolese rumba on the region.
