Discussed is the 'passion for Cuba' held by Dr. Robert Stephens, professor of music at the University of Connecticut-Storrs and interim director of the school's Institute for African American Studies
Explored is the history of Calypso music, which though originating in Trinidad, most likely has its roots among the many African cultural retentions that were transported with the ancestors to the west via the slave trade
The article discusses the importance of percussionists and drummers in Jamaican popular music, especially reggae, arguing that their contributions have often been under-estimated. It emphasizes the traditional African roots of characteristic Jamaican drumming styles. An overview of the history of Jamaican percussion and drumming is provided. Musicians discussed include Babu Bryan, known for his Kumina drumming, Watta King, a drummer in the Buru tradition, and Oswald "Count Ossie" Williams, who developed the Nyabinghi style of Rastafarian drumming.
Examines how the Mocko Jumbie stilt-dancing masquerade evolved in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Contends that an upper Guinea coast provenance appears more likely than origins in southeastern Nigeria
Since its publication in 1976, Ivan van Sertima's book They Came Before Columbus has gone through 21 printings, while receiving widespread--though not unanimous--condemnation from the American archaeological establishment, culminating in a hostile, full-length forum in Current Anthropology. And yet, startlingly, the field of American archaeology has recently found itself in the midst of a major paradigm shift, caused by archaeological evidence that obliterates the Clovis model as a legitimate demarcation of the first presence of human settlement in the New World. Kamugisha proposes to trace the response to They Came Before Columbus, while discussing the issue of diffusionism in van Sertima's work.;
