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xv Carlos Aldama would like to thank his mother and father, Jesús Pérez, and all of his old teachers. Thanks to Santa Torriente and Librada Quesada Mozorra. Thanks to his children: Maida, Dalia, Iliana, and Michel. Thanks to all of his godchildren (ahijados). Thanks to his life partner Yvette Phillips Aldama and to Piri Ochun. Thanks to Yagbe Gerrard, Michael Kramer, and Rick Ananda. Umi Vaughan would like to thank Glen, Deborah, Yasmeen, Freddie , Jeffrey, Jeremiah, and Alan Vaughan, Secret and Ebony Onoh, and Nefertari Hawthorne. Thanks to José Francisco Barroso, Miriam Viant “La China,” Victor Mendoza, Gloria Rolando, Nancy Morejón, Pedro Pérez Sarduy, Tomás Fernández Robaina, Miguel Barnet, María Teresa Linares, Olavo Alén, Carlos Moore, Rebecca Scott, and Ruth Behar for teaching me about Cuba. Thanks to Ifeoma Nwankwo, Kevin Gaines, Julius Scott, Kim Butler, and Yvonne Daniel for teaching me about the African Diaspora and for opening key doors. Thanks to Zeke Nealy, ArielFernández,C.K.Ladzekpo,JumaSantos,OtobajiNgoma,Marcus Gordon, David Frazier, Teddy Strong, Sandy Pérez, Jesús Díaz, John Santos, Bill Summers, Sekou Gibson, Pancho Quinto, Enrique Mora, PapoAngarica,andJesús“Cusito”Lorenzoforwhattheyhavetaughtme aboutdrumming.ThankstoJanetHartforhercourseonOralHistoryat the University of Michigan. Thanks to Ruth Nicole Brown for the initial push to begin writing this book. Thanks to the faculty and staff at California State University Monterey Bay. Rina Benmayor, Maria Villaseñor, and Richard Bains offered great encouragement and made important suggestions. Annette March A c k n o w l e d g m e n ts Acknowledgments xvi and Luana Conley administered a Teaching and Learning Grant that funded part of the work. Renee Curry, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, generously supported the creation of the audio recording included with the book. Drew Waters engineered the recording sessions with student assistants Nick Rives and Jeff Mifflin, and university staff Cheryl Abbott, Yolanda Pérez, and Nicole Mendoza helped to coordinate it all. Thanks to Álvaro Gutiérrez (son of CSUMB professor Juan Gutiérrez)forhisSpanishtranslationofanearlydraftofthemanuscript. Thanks to library staff Rebecca Bergeon and Susanne Rodríguez for their help tracking down hard to find sources. Thanks to Troy Challenger , Barbara Beckmeyer, Jeff McCall, Aaron Roy, and Lark Simmons for help preparing digital photographs and maps. Thanks to all my students at CSUMB, especially from my class “Afro Cuba Hip Hop: Music and Dance in the Black Atlantic,” who were a sounding board for some of the ideas presented here. Thanks to the Alliance for California Traditional Arts for supporting this project through the 2009 Apprentice Program (especially to Sherwood Chen and Jaime García Leyva, who worked with us). Thanks to U.C. Berkeley doctoral student Lia Bascom, novelist Carolina de Robertis, Professor Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof (from the University of Michigan), and my neighbor Bob “Silky” O’Sullivan for their comments on the manuscript at various stages. Thanks to James Early and Daniel Sheehy at the Smithsonian for their positive energy and sound advice. SaludostomycompadreJoel“Machón”Mendozaandthetwounknown drummers from Santiago de Cuba who appear in the cover photo. Thanks to John Mason, Shukuru Sanders, and Oseye Mchawi for bolstering our communities with their work and for encouraging mine. Thanks to Calvin Holmes, Rick Ananda, and Taji Malik for drumming with Carlos and me on the audio recording. Thanks to Yvette Aldama for her trust and support. Thanks to Jane Behnken, Sarah Wyatt Swanson , Peter Froelich, Brian Herrmann, Louie Simon, Nancy Lightfoot, Jamison Cockerham, Ted Boardman, and all the staff at Indiana University Press who helped bring this book to completion. Finally, thanks to Carlos Aldama for teaching me so much about batá and life and for being a wonderful friend. Muchas gracias, don Carlos. ...

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