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Tamales and the blues: Latino links to Black American music and cuisine

Legend has it that Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil for supernatural guitar talent. He went on to record songs in the 1930s about cars, the crossroads — and tamales.

The big picture: Johnson's famous homage to tamales in "They're Red Hot" points to regularly neglected Latino connections to Black American music and cuisine scholars are just now working to uncover.


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