A Journey through the <em>Unity Atlantic Rhythm Map</em>

International audience The Unity Atlantic Rhythm Map is a digital archive prototype that visually unites Afro-diasporic intangible heritage in performances by American, Caribbean and African culture-bearers (mostly emigrés) – and related media from their homelands and the wider diaspora. Watch the 82 second Teaser video (D. C. Molloy 2024b). In the Unity Map, rhythm refers to music and dance interchangeably and as one, as in West African griot cultures (Traore 2020; Comtet 2012; Molloy 2021). As this journal edition considers Africaneity through Caribbean dance, I share my rhythm mapping process. This reveals living African rhythms and historic population flows that make the Caribbean a major hub of Afro-diasporic dance knowledge circulation. Find my browser-based application – the Unity Atlantic RhythmMap – open access online. Or take a 3-minute video tour of the Unity Map in English (D. C. Molloy 2025b) or French (D. C. Molloy 2025a). The Unity Map offers an audiovisual journey through circles of past, present, and future social dance – dances we carry in muscle memory, as observed by Katrina Hazzard-Donald in her book Jookin’ (1990). The Unity Map curates archival, dance community and social media sources as well as official video channels by iconic artists. Any reliable, ethical source that illustrates rhythm real-time dance-drum syncrony, rhythm-coded vocabulary, imagery, formation and steps with black representation and expertise, will be considered for the Map. Methodologies include videodance and multimedia ethnography. A unifying aesthetic thread is rhythm as a ritual of social identity and individual expression. Map data is organised by recognising rhythm as a unit of embodied collective knowledge, encoded in dance, sound and image. Ancestral rhythm-coded ritual and improvisation emerge as a generative epistemology of Africana memory, identity and belonging. Mapped as a dynamic constellation of knowledge, rhythm iterations illustrate diverse black experiences through local imagery. Explore the Unity Atlantic Rhythm Map unityatlantic.org (best on tablet or computer with wifi and speakers/headphones). Known bugs: iPhone errors in Map display. A subset of rhythm media is available via Nakala, open access research repository also cited in the Unity Map modal window text tabs. Making Unity Map data independently citable, offers an alternative channel in case the Map interface fails on a given device or on a given day. The Map is decolonial in turning towards indigenous knowledge, prioritising rhythm-based codes of identity over nation-state identity. Slavery made Black Atlantic identity culturally stateless. Nation states historically and periodically exclude or marginalise Afrodescendant peoples and our cultures. The Map offers a unifying Black Atlantic identity narrative that honors our historic trauma, our globally influential rhythm heritage and linguistic diversity. While research and data entry continues, the Map already offers a unique resource for comparing ancestral dances of West Africa with Black dances of the Americas. The Unity Atlantic Rhythm Map is an expression of my Afro-Caribbean identity shaped by a social dance practice spanning many codes, countries and collaborations with Afrodescendant culture bearers. The Map centers real-time drum-dance synchrony, Black representation, virtuoso artists and high production values. The Map's functional longevity depends on software maintenance – so new funding and collaborations need to follow the successful Project Manifest co-production. This article reaches out to funders, curators and dance scholars interested in a Map collaboration or simply in sharing data sources.