To followers of the Afro-Brazilian religion “Candomble”, samba means to pray, to invoke personal African deities called orixas (god/saint). With roots in West Africa (i.e. Angola and Congo), Samba comes from a word connected with the summoning of the orixas. Originally the African slaves hid their ritual dances for the spirits by pretending to praise the saints so they could please the Portuguese masters who tried to convert them to Catholicism. There are still questions regarding where the name came from, for example, in Angola “semba” is ritual music and in Congo “Sembe” is a town in the Sangha region.