Ned Sublette is a historian, musicologist, rumba producer, a long-time correspondent for the public radio program Afropop Worldwide, the author of four books, and now a music travel producer. He has had extensive field experience with music throughout the African diaspora, and especially in Cuba. His books all deal, in one way or another, with the world of the Kongo and its connection with Catholicism, which began in 1491 when the manikongo (Kongo king) enthusiastically accepted baptism. This much-discussed syncretism was brought from Africa to locations up and down the eastern coasts of the Americas, playing a crucial role in American histories over and over again. Sublette will analyze and compare musical traditions in Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Angola.