<p>Popular music in the Americas, from jazz, Cuban and Latin salsa to disco andrap, is overwhelmingly neo-African. Created in the midst of war and militaryinvasion, and filtered through a Western worldview, these musical forms arecompletely modern in their sensibilities: they are in fact the very sound ofmodern life. But the African religious philosophy at their core involved alonging for earlier eras -- ones that pre-dated the technological discipline oflabor forced on captive populations by the European occupiers. In thisgroundbreaking new book, Timothy Brennan shows how the popular music of theAmericas -- the music of entertainment, nightlife, and leisure -- is involved ina devotion to an African religious worldview that survived the ravages ofslavery and found its way into the rituals of everyday listening. In doing sohe explores the challenge posed by Afro-Latin music to a world music systemdominated by a few wealthy countries and the processes by which Afro-Latinmusic has been absorbed into the imperial imagination.</p>