The article focuses upon the items that have been used in the process of the commoditization of Afro-Bahian culture, both traditional and modern. It concerns symbolic and material exchanges amongst this manifestation of black culture, black cultures in other regions of the Black Atlantic and, over the last few decades, globalized youth culture. Once commoditized, "black objects" travel, often far and wide. This article also concerns itself with the qualities of these exchanges between centres and peripheries of the Black Atlantic, their direction and hierarchies implicit in them. Backed by fieldwork in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, the article highlights the situation of lower-class black-mestizo young people and, to a lesser extent, the growing group of black-mestizos in a middle-class position.