I want to concentrate on three broad themes in responding to the papers by Arlt and Collins. The first one is about archives and collecting and what I call the dilemmas of discography. Connected to these dilemmas is the question of the place of popular music within academia and the implications thereof for the distribution of funds. The second one is more concerned with concepts and ideas. And the third one relates to the position of Christianity in the African cultures and history we study and with its position in our academic field. Starting with the first theme, I want to direct our attention to the UTC record collection. For the study of popular African music the UTC series of over 700 shellac discs is of immense importance with regard to discography and content.

For anyone who has done any detailed analysis of discographic research in African music, the existence of one complete set, as it might be the case with the UTC recordings, is the ideal. Such a complete set would be a resource without precedent. In the case of most record companies or series, we do not know how many records were edited and published. Lists or catalogs rarely exist and, if they do, they may cover only a particular period. Far too often we are left to speculate. If, for example, we come across a record that carries the number 104, does it mean, this is the 104th record, or is it number 4 of a series labeled with three digits? Is record number 104 the last out of these four records, or will hundreds follow? There is no obvious rationality in numbering records. A series may begin with 101 and end with 104, but it may continue with another label color and a letter added such as B101. Sometimes a complete set—or only a selection of titles—is taken over by another company and this may be recognizable by a certain letter preceding the numbers, for instance, the letter “J” for Jeronimides, the Greek owners of the NGOMA label in Léopoldville.