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A total of 12 new cycloartane- and lanostane-type triterpenoids including 16-deoxyargentatin A ( 1 ), 16-deoxyisoargentatin A ( 2 ), 7-oxoisoargentatin A ( 3 ), 24- epi -argentatin H ( 4 ), 24- O - p -anisoylargentatin C ( 5 ), 24- O - trans -cinnamoylargentatin C ( 6 ), 16-dehydroargentatin C ( 7 ), 16,17(20)-didehydroargentatin C ( 8 ), isoargentatin C ( 9 ), isoargentatin H ( 10 ), 3- epi -quisquagenin ( 11 ), and isoquisquagenin ( 12 ) together with 10 known triterpenoids ( 13 – 22 ) were isolated from the resin of Parthenium argentatum AZ-2 obtained as a byproduct of Bridgestone guayule rubber production. The structures of new triterpenoids 1 – 12 and argentatin H ( 13 ), which has previously been characterized as its diacetate ( 23 ), were elucidated by extensive analysis of their spectroscopic data and chemical conversions, and the known compounds 14 – 22 were identified by comparison of their spectroscopic data with those reported. Of these, 13 , 14 , and 18 exhibited weak cytotoxic activity for several cancer cell lines.

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Most first-time listeners of Congolese popular dance music comment on the fact that this typically African musical style actually sounds like it comes from somewhere else: "Is that merengue?" or "It sounds kind of Cuban". Given that since the beginning of Congolese modern music in the 1930s, Afro-Cuban music has been one of its primary sources of inspiration, this is obviously not a coincidence. In historical terms, it is probably more accurate to say that Cuba and other Caribbean nations have been inspired by the musical traditions of Africa, though this is not the focus of my article. While research on the question of transatlantic cultural flows can provide valuable information about the roots and resilience of culture, I am more interested in what these flows mean to people in particular times and places and ultimately what people are able to do with them, both socially and politically. In this article I will look briefly at how Afro-Cuban music came to be imported to the Congo (in the form of a series of records referred to as the G.V. series). I will reflect on what this musical style might have sounded like to Congolese living under colonial rule, but also what kind of social significance it held for them. My central argument is that Afro-Cuban music became popular in the Congo not only because it retained formal elements of "traditional" African musical performance, but also because it stood for a form of urban cosmopolitanism that was more accessible-and ultimately more pleasurable-than the various models of European cosmopolitanism which circulated in the Belgian colonies in Africa. An exciting new literature has emerged on the topic of cosmopolitanism and precisely because of its insistence on history, it is now possible to speak of "cosmopolitanisms" in the plural and of cosmopolitan practices that take place in the periphery, topics that I will discuss in the final section of this article. But this is not how I came on the question of cosmopolitanism. When I began field research on Congolese popular dance music in the summer of 1995, the Democratic Republic of Congo was still Zaire. The Mobutu regime was in its final epileptic throes, and authenticité (Mobutu's back to the roots political platform of the 1970s and 1980s) was more often a source of humor than of pride. I was immediately struck by local ways

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