Yale professor Robert Farris Thompson is a living legend. He started writing about the African heritage in the art and music of the Americas when no one recognized the continuities, when African-American studies did not exist and the Civil Rights Movement still met with violent opposition. This book presents the best of the essays on Afro- Atlantic art and music that Thompson wrote from 1963 to 2006. Edited for this publication, they offer a riveting guide to Afro-Atlantic culture, from the tango to James Hampton's glittering Throne of the Third Heaven.One significant piece on David Hammons, a leading figure in contemporary art, appears here for the first time. Among a staggering array of topics, other essays consider bus painting in Haiti Jean-Michel Basquiat's love of jazz hip-hop Cuban Kongo altars and the art of Jose Bedia Betye Saar and vodun Renee Stout, healing, and the nkisi-charm Keith Haring, the dancer American yard art and bottle trees Umbanda altars and the ethos transmitted in the aesthetic of the 'cool'. Many of the color illustrations reproduce Thompson's photographs of dance, altars, and lost masterpieces of yardart. | 
