Syncretism is the combination of qualities from two or more cultures, usually those that have significantly different traits. Diaspora refers to the spreading out of people from their traditional homelands to other parts of the world, whether by choice or because they were forced out. Both those who originally moved and their descendants are considered part of the diaspora. While the African diaspora is represented all around the globe, it is especially strong in the Western Hemisphere. From the early seventeenth through the early nineteenth century, many African people in diaspora reached the Americas and the Caribbean islands because they had been enslaved.

Syncretism is apparent in African-derived and African-influenced music in the Americas, such as jazz. Non-African musical influences can be found in African music, and African American syncretic forms also stimulated further original cultural production as they became known in Africa. In the twentieth century, reggae developed among Afro-descendant people in Jamaica; it was then welcomed and adapted in East Africa, especially Ethiopia, which had been the source of the Rastafarian roots of the genre.