Why study music in the Black Atlantic and/or Black Pacific? Assess the value of a Black Atlantic / Pacific lens in Music studies to re-narrate these geographical and musical-theoretical zones by offering a critical assessment of two tropes of Afro-diasporic music that we have studied: rhythmicity / percussiveness, embodiment, spirituality, and collectivism. To what extent do these musical tropes contribute to the formation of ideologies of difference and epistemic violence?