Dr Kafumbe’s book begins with a brief geo-historical preface on Buganda and the Baganda, the kingdom and people at the centre of his study, respectively. He then introduces the political context within which Kawuugulu musical performance operates. Understanding kingdom politics as inextricable from a complex kinship system, Kafumbe shows how Kawuugulu’s sociopolitical function situates this tradition within the mutually constitutive domains of kinship, clanship, and kingship. All three domains emerge from and inform oral histories, the traditions of storytelling about Baganda of prior generations and their sophisticated spiritual life. In this aspect of his introduction, Kafumbe’s work builds on the rich extant anthropological and historical scholarship on the kingdom. His reflexivity regarding his overlapping identities as a person studying far away from home, a clanswoman’s child of Kawuugulu musicians, and a participant observer sets up a logical segue towards the distinctive contribution he makes to that scholarly literature.

In the four chapters that follow, Kafumbe examines the organology and stewardship of Kawuugulu instruments, analyzes Kawuugulu-associated dances and spiritual dimensions, and explicates symbolic and political properties embedded in stories about the history and social organisation of Buganda. His analysis of stories and songs spans both intra-clan and inter-clan relationships that Kawuugulu performances facilitate. His conclusion scales a single Kawuugulu music and dance event up beyond just the mushroom clan who serve as stewards of the tradition to a broader understanding of Kiganda kinship, clanship, kingship, storytelling, and politics. In all of these endeavours, Kafumbe’s linguistic and musical precision makes this book well worth the price of admission. His ethnographic sensitivity leverages musical methodologies to open multiple analytical treasures; these are hallmarks of a tightly woven ethnomusicological monograph.

What Kafumbe suggests about Kawuugulu as a “performative constitution” should motivate readers to reconsider the ethnography and history of Buganda. In particular, it offers an excellent and welcome musical complement not only to recent work on Buganda by historians like Shane Doyle, Jonathon Earle, Holly Hanson, Jennifer Johnson, Neil Kodesh, and David Schoenbrun, but also to earlier work by anthropologists and historians of eastern and southern Africa. Within this deep archive of African history, Kafumbe’s analytical voice resonates with crystal clarity. Some of these authors had already shown in broader terms about how shrine practices at major and minor clan estates have long contributed to the functioning of the kingdom. Kafumbe not only parses the consubstantiality of familial and political relations that makes those contributions so important, he offers unprecedented specificity about how performance shapes this foundational feature of social life in Buganda. To a folklore literature concerned with oral epic poetry but frequently divorced from its musical contexts, Kafumbe provides an integrated analysis of a tradition that—like so many others—features music, dance, history, narrative, identity, and politics as coextensive, complementary domains.

The one shortcoming of this book is that its author too modestly estimates the impact of his insight for East African studies, which is significant precisely because of the contributions that music and dance make to understanding one of the region’s most thoroughly researched kingdoms. Some might think the book could engage more directly with this specific stream of Africanist literature and with likewise relevant theoretical scholarship to which Kafumbe’s work brings useful comparisons and potential insights. These could well be conscious omissions, as Kafumbe was trained by some who would rather represent African music in as clear a tone as possible and let readers make their own analytical comparisons. This could be read as a way of avoiding uses of comparison and theory that risk over-exoticising and subsequently obscuring Kawuugulu’s lessons. Likewise, the main stewards of this tradition and Kafumbe’s participation in it might well prefer his approach. The press might also construe this tight focus as a stylistic alignment with the book series.

Tuning the Kingdom is brief enough for an ambitious intermediate or advanced undergraduate course. An abundance of Luganda terms and the complexity of concepts that promise rewarding links from this work to other scholarship require a savvy facilitator with a well-structured approach. Kafumbe’s ethnographic engagement with the subject matter, his self-consciously constructed methodology, and fieldwork ethics make it ideal for graduate and faculty reading and reflection. Scholars in anthropology, folklore, history, political science, and religion all have much to learn from Kafumbe’s work. Along with these readers, anyone working in or preparing to embark on studies of Uganda or East Africa will find in this compact volume a focused, methodologically innovative contribution to the growing literature on a fascinating kingdom.