Nationalizing Blackness

This book needed to be written. It is the story of Afro-Cuban musicians in the pre-revolutionary atmosphere of commercialism and imperialism from the US. Part of the story revolves around the racism of that era, which existed as well in the genres of big band and jazz. And part of the story revolves around the music of that time period--some of the richest and most complex in Latin American history. If you want to understand the use of African cultural identifications in popular music, this is a good place to start. It fills in some of the history which led up to the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon today.

An important work that sheds light and understanding of the struggles and triumphs of Afrocubans and their culture. Robin D. Moore takes you into a fascinating journey, with scholarly research and in depth analysis, of the racial experience during a period of tremendous changes and unrest in Cuba. This work is an enormous contribution to our understanding of this period between 1920 through 1940...Bravo!

Robin Moore's work is an important contribution to cuban studies. Combining archival research and interviews, Moore traces the arc of afrocuban cultural expression in the early 20th century from dispised cultural form to national symbol, a process, moore notes, which has interesting parallels to the United States. Scholarly but readable, this book is destined to become a standard work in cuban musicology and contributes to cultural, ethnic, and popular music studies.