Silencing the Drum explores the role of sacred music in Afro-Brazilian religious traditions and provides detailed accounts of religious intolerance, particularly in relation to the drum. The book argues that unless Afro-Brazilian sacred music is protected from a rising wave of attacks, the effects on these important practices could be devastating.

Danielle N. Boaz is associate professor of Africana studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte focusing on human rights, social justice, and the law. She is the author of Banning Black Gods: Law and Religions of the African Diaspora and Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur. She runs www.religiousracism.org, which provides information about discrimination and violence against African diaspora religions in Brazil.

Umi Vaughan is professor of Africana Studies at California State University Monterey Bay. He is a scholar/artist and the author of Carlos Aldama’s Life in Batá: Cuba, Diaspora, and the Drum (Indiana University Press) and Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance: Timba Music and Black Identity in Cuba (University of Michigan Press).