“I’m—I’m—here for the same reason as the others,” Lamin Momodu says. He averts his eyes. “We’re all here—to—to play Bubu music at America’s Got Talent. Our music came from the underworld.” He laughs and adjusts his suit, revealing sweat patches under his arms. “Well, that’s according to a historic myth. Centuries ago, someone had a dream, and in that dream, he saw a band like ours, playing horns. He was taught to play Bubu music in the underworld. It would be an honor to share it with the world.”

In my personal photograph, I see a little girl who loves to sing lifting her chin and preparing to lift her voice. She is finally old enough to join the children’s choir, and is swelling with the pride and joy of being one of the ten; chosen from scores of girls and boys to wear a white-on-gray choir uniform.