After years of touring and discovering music from all parts of the world, Napoleon Maddox came home with a longing for cultivation and fearless celebration of what musicians here have to offer the world. “It’s important that the connection be understood, stated and restated. This music came from the beak of Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Maya Angelou’s “caged bird,” he says. “When artists around the world create or perform jazz, country, funk, rock, hip-hop or trap, they are echoing some Blues that the ‘caged bird sang.’” The musical offerings he’s heard on stages in Finland, England, France and other places, drove him to create the Underworld Jazz Festival, which takes place May 23-27 at venues around Cincinnati, and include two performances of his experimental music mashup, The Deconstruction Period. In honor of this event, we asked Napo to give us his top Afrofuturistic tracks.  Read More