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This article examines the Cotton Club, Harlem’s most notorious Prohibition-era nightclub, as a critical nexus of racial fantasy and cultural innovation in Jazz Age America. It argues that the club functioned as a hegemonic institution where white ownership meticulously crafted an exoticized “jungle” aesthetic for a wealthy, whites-only clientele, effectively commodifying Black bodies and artistry within a framework of primitivist desire. However, far from being a mere site of oppression, the club also became an unlikely incubator for Black musical excellence. Through a tripartite analysis of the club’s ownership and theming, the compositional strategies of Duke Ellington, and the politics…