Larry Crook (Ph.D, University of Texas) specializes in ethnomusicology and music history at the University of Florida’s School of Music and teaches a variety of courses in Latin American, Caribbean, and African music as well as specialized seminars in ethnomusicology. At UF he is area head for the Musicology and Ethnomusicology Program in the School of Music and is an affiliate member of Anthropology and the Centers for Latin American and African Studies. A percussionist, he is Director of the UF World Music Ensembles (Jacaré Brazil and Agbedidi Africa) and gives staged and interactive performances regularly. Dr. Crook's research focuses on Brazilian music, the African Diaspora, music and identity, and popular music. He is author of Brazilian Music: Northeastern Traditions and the Heartbeat of a Modern Nation (2005; 2nd ed, 2009) and co-editor of Black Brazil: Culture, Identity, and Social Mobilization (1999). He has also published articles and essays of his work in journals, books, and encyclopedias.

In its interdisciplinary breadth, compelling depth, and thematic focus, Black Brazil: Culture, Identity, and Social Mobilization provides, in a single volume, what most learned associations aspire to produce after a major conference. And a conference it was: held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in April 1993, on the same theme, it brought together a mix of scholars, activists, and artists from across the Atlantic. As the editors point out, "Black Brazil's cultural practices are not only necessary in order for Brazil to become truly democratic, but they are also absolutely essential in order to mobilize the mass population of Afro-Brazilians" (9). This collection not only legitimizes the relevance of Afro-Brazilians and their culture in the humanities and social sciences, it equally provides new research directions in Brazilian and African Diaspora Studies as contributors grapple with the persistence of racism in a culturally diverse, rich, yet contradictory country. All of these issues are well captured in the subtitle; for how can there be social mobilization when a significant portion of the country is marginalized and only celebrated either yearly during carnival, or during more frequent cultural manifestations such as Capoeira, Candomblé, Bumba-Meu-Boi, among others? Mobilization for whom, by whom, and for what purpose? Some of these questions are profoundly addressed in the nineteen essays as well as the introduction by the editors.