ABSTRACT
M usic has deeply influenced and informed the culture of Africans in the Americas from the initial days of New World African enslavement. Throughout the African sojourn in the Americas, enslaved Africans continued to practice music as they had in their various African societies. Music operated in a unified intellectual and emotional world where mind and body were inseparable, where the sacred and the secular were understood as a whole. The enduring power of New World African music can be traced to this belief and the ability of music to integrate function and meaning.
