The validity of recent changes in the taxonomic treatment of the Square-tailed Drongo Dicrurus ludwigii is assessed via analyses of morphological, morphometric, acoustic and distributional evidence. In addition to confirming the characters already recognised to distinguish West and Central African sharpei from the ludwigii group, we report previously undocumented but notable differences in voice and tail morphology. The occurrence of a hitherto unrecognised population of sharpei in south-east DR Congo, inferred from recent molecular studies, is confirmed, whilst evidence of the close approach of the two taxa in north-west Angola, within c.60 km of each other, further supports their distinctiveness. The proposal to separate sharpei itself into two species—with populations west of the Niger River recognised as occidentalis—is, however, not supported by vocal data, whilst differences in bill size, the sole known physical discriminant, are here found to be much more modest than previously reported, perhaps attributable to the larger sample sizes used in this study. Thus, on phenetic evidence, occidentalis merits no more than subspecific status.