Carlos Aldama's Life in Batá: Cuba, Diaspora, and the Drum
"A solid ethnography, grounded in a rich and dramatic biography, reveals  the creative power of the Yoruba drum to communicate sounds and words  that are invested with rich secular and religious meanings about people  and culture, identity and history, life and after-life. Only a  scholar-performer with an uncommon imaginative talent could have written  this extraordinary book." —Toyin Falola, Distinguished Teaching  Professor, The University of Texas at Austin, and editor of The Yoruba  Diaspora in the Atlantic World"Everything you need to know about batá and batá-playing is in this  text, expertly taught and philosophically interpreted by Carlos Aldama  and his star yamboki (apprentice), Umi Vaughan....I am proud to have  read this Afro-Cuban classic." —Robert Farris Thompson, Trumbull  Professor of the History of Art, Yale, and author of Aesthetic of the  Cool: Afro-Atlantic Art and Music"What a beautiful duet and deep dialogue between anthropologist Umi  Vaughan and his batá teacher Carlos Aldama we find in these pages. We  are so fortunate their paths crossed and that we now have the gift of  their interwoven story, which makes the meaning of the drum in Cuban  history, religion, and culture come alive….This is anthropology carried  out with dedication, passion, and trust, and most of all with  illuminating grace." —Ruth Behar, Professor of Anthropology, University  of Michigan, and author of An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish  Cuba