Africanist scholar and photographer C. Daniel Dawson explores Afro-diasporic cosmologies, sacred performance, and embodied memory through the lens of national musics in the Americas such as Bomba, Rumba, Samba, Mambo, Cumbia and Tango. Mambo, meaning important issue or problem in the original Kongo context, reveals the African origin of these traditions. Composer and master percussionist Adam Rudolph, renowned for his expansive knowledge of rhythm and sonic histories across cultures, responds by reflecting on creative philosophy, musical transmission, bebop syntax, signal rhythms and sonic mandalas. Together, they examine how mentorship structures and rhythmic systems circulate across cultures and epochs, functioning as vehicles of knowledge, memory and transformation.