The Introduction provides historical and theoretical background for the book. The chapter offers an historical overview of Cuban music in West Africa, and explains how histories and discourses of globalization, cosmopolitanism, Africa, the black Atlantic, and black internationalism intersect. Musicians, industry personnel, and audiences draw on these histories as they collaborate with each other to create international commodities. The chapter argues that all of these actors see their labor and its products quite differently as they move between and combine local and global markets, African and Afro-diasporic sounds, traditional and hybrid musics, and histories of slavery, colonialism, and independence. Musicians, industry personnel, and audiences work with and push against one another as they continually (re)position themselves in the world music industry.