Salvador de Bahia has long been imagined as the gateway between Brazil and the rest of the world. But for countless people it was a one-way gate; more enslaved Africans were trafficked to Salvador than to any other colonial port. Salvador thus developed into the primary center of the Afro-Brazilian population and culture. The birthplace of Samba is well known for musical and culinary innovation, both heavily influential upon and distinct from wider Brazilian culture. But glaring inequality is more visible here than anywhere else in the country; a large cliff runs through the city which physically segregates Salvador into a poor, mostly Black 'lower city' and a wealthy, mostly White 'upper city'. As hundreds of thousands of mainly Afro-Brazilian citizens from the countryside leave sugarcane and fruit plantations for city life, these issues are only becoming more acute.