Focusing on expressions of popular culture among blacks in Africa, the United States, and the Carribean this collection of multidisciplinary essays takes on subjects long overdue for study. Fifteen essays cover a world of topics, from American girls Double Dutch games to protest discourse in Ghana; from Terry McMillan s "Waiting to Exhale" to the work of Zora Neale Hurston; from South African workers to "Just Another Girl on the IRT"; from the history of Rasta to the evolving significance of kente clothl from rap video music to hip-hop to zouk.

The contributors work through the prisms of...