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This article, based on archival research in Mali and Cuba, analyses the political and musical issues involved in a game of back-and-forth that was prompted by Malian and Cuban musicians’ international travel. The author measures these stakes in the Cold War context, using the yardstick of post-independence cultural exchanges between African countries and Cuba. She studies the presence of Las Maravillas de Mali in Cuba and Orquestra Aragón in West Africa to update our understanding of the many levels of music flowing through the “Black Atlantic”. In doing so, she exposes the role special, post-colonial political dynamics have played in the history of globalized transatlantic music.