At the turn of the twentieth century, Gyorgy Ligeti’s late piano music was performed in various European concert halls alongside music of the Aka Pygmies of Central Africa. The acclaimed project culminated in a CD on the Teldec label entitled Ligeti/Reich: African rhythms (Pierre Laurent Aimard/Aka Pygmies) featuring works by Ligeti, alongside works by Steve Reich and music of the Aka. The article describes and evaluates the uneven critical reception of the project in relation to the precise formal connections between Ligeti’s etudes, on the one hand, and the music of Aka, in particular, and African music, in general, on the other. Some of the African citations in Ligeti’s etudes are traced to specific source materials, the original function and context of the music (even if they are not demonstrably known by the composer) is briefly described, and the ideological dimenstions implicit in the way African materials are put to use in a Western context are assessed.