African American Vernacular English (AAVE) integrated a more African connection of mind to body and body to nature into English.

AAVE was how the enslaved forever integrated into English a more African than "Western" (a word I despise) connection of mind to body, and body to nature nature (as expressed by James' point about his body register changes in the atmopshere, except in his donnish argot); and a more African conception of musicality, especially rhythmic but also tonal ("melisma," the musicologists call it); not to mention an African conception of parody and play as a mode of human interconnectedness.