In the same way as jazz, reggae, and other music resulting from the crossing of diverse aesthetics, zouk participates in the conservation of memories within what Paul Gilroy calls the « Black Atlantic ». This metaphor expresses the plurality of the African diaspora's artistic genius, which is perceptible in the diverse aesthetics spread throughout the Sixth Continent. All such expressions coalesce into « a strongly mythologized Africanity, which itself nds its origin not in Africa, but in a variety of the pan-Africanist ideology produced very recently by Black America » (Gilroy, 2003: 123). Within it, melodic rhythms and phrases have developed. They represent forms which are certainly speci c to each geo-cultural area, but whose basic pulse, the syncopation, recalls the mixed-race origin of this music, sprung from the encounter between the cultural heritages of Africa, Europe and the Americas. Like all daughter music born of such métissage, zouk plays a mediating and unifying role. Its birth in the 1980s represents, from this point of view, a landmark in the history of cultural identity in the French West Indies. Its representative, the mythical band Kassav, will become the ambassador of a diasporic musical culture all over the world. Kassav's multiple concerts in the Caribbean, the United States, Europe, and Africa will inspire new vocations and bring in its wake leading gures of World Music, creating bridges, transfers, and in uences between musicians, choreographers, and performers from the Americas. For example, Jeff Joseph, a former member of Kool and the Gang, will team up with Katherine Thélamond after collaborating with Exile One and the Grammacks. Other Caribbean musicians from the zouk planet will join world-class groups such as Peter Gabriel's band. These diasporic artists will bring a particular touch, a certainly discreet, but quite palpable Caribbeanness to contemporary musical currents. If temporality plays a primary, unifying role, a sign of recognition immediately perceptible by the citizens of the American-Caribbean diaspora, spatiality is also one of its essential components. Zouk, as a dance, has blended harmoniously with other Latin American dances-such as the lambada-that will eventually extend their diasporic rami cations as far away as Florida and California. We intend to show through these emblematic cases that zouk contributes to the emergence of new paradigms of modernity that bring the peoples of the Diaspora closer together. Sound, movement, and the spirit of our time merge, thanks to the diasporic consciousness of zouk, into an aesthetic continuum that expands the boundary challenges posed by migration and cultural dislocation.