Focuses on expressions of popular culture among blacks in Africa, the United States, and the Carribean. Fifteen essays cover a world of topics, from American girls' Double Dutch games to protest discourse in Ghana; from the history of Rasta to the evolving significance of kente cloth from rap video music to hip-hop to zouk.

This book focuses on expressions of popular culture among blacks in selected areas of Africa and its diaspora--specifically, the United States and the Caribbean. Proceeding from the dual premise that culture is a complex system of signification as well as a socially constructed product, the contributors to this volume, through their respective disciplinary prisms, seek to penetrate the hidden language of symbols in black popular culture in order to decode, decipher, and 'translate' them, to reveal their multiple meanings, functions, and roles.